Zugzwang
by SoulfireInc
Summary: Malcolm fakes his death to save the team from a killer with a vendetta against him.
1. The Only Way

_**AN: TW for scenes of a suicidal nature. Mind yourselves!**_

* * *

Gil's heart was beating so hard it hurt. It throbbed in his throat, threatening to cut off his air. _Please,_ he begged anything that was listening, _please let him be here._

"Bright?" His call echoed through the empty floor, the unfinished walls throwing it back as though mocking. "Kid, come on. Where are you?"

The office building was half constructed, worktables and tools left abandoned like the unhinged doors and unpainted walls. It was silent save Gil's careful footsteps, crunching delicately on flakes of plaster. Gil adjusted his grip on his gun and swallowed hard. If he was wrong, if Bright wasn't here ... if he was too late. He'd never forgive himself. Never.

He called out again and was rewarded by a muted thud, then footsteps. Bright stepped out of the end office and the relief almost made Gil faint. He was okay. Unhurt. But there was a wariness to his eyes, a dark determination that made Gil's stomach drop the three stories to the ground floor.

He pushed the unease down and smiled, relaxing his defensive posture. "Kid. I'm glad I found you."

Bright shook his head, his gaze never leaving Gil.

"You shouldn't be here."

Holstering his gun, Gil stepped forward with a laugh. "Kid, my place is with you whether you think it is or not."

Bright's expression tightened – with pain?

"Listen, Bright," Gil continued, approaching slowly, hands raised. "I know it's been one hell of a week. I know you feel trapped –"

"I am."

"You're _not._ There's a way out of this. I know there is. We've just got to figure it out, that's all."

A humourless laugh fell from Bright's lips and it struck Gil how alien the kid looked. The way he was holding himself, like he was ready to run, to strike out, to flee.

"And how many more people am I supposed to let suffer while I 'figure it out', Gil?"

Gil shook his head slowly. "What happened to JT wasn't –"

"He _shot him,_ Gil. Because of me. Because I was too scared to act. I'm not letting anyone else get hurt. Not because of me." These last words were a whispered promise, dripping with sincerity and hatred that prickled along Gil's skin.

"Bright, listen to me, this killer is not your responsibility –"

He laughed again, a high, hysterical sound and Bright stepped back, away from him, hand shaking by his side. Sweat beaded his brow. "Gil, his terms were clear."

Gil halted, stymied. _I will kill every one of your family, _the killer had promised, _every one of your team. Until you make amends. Until Malcolm Bright is dead. A life for a life._

Three days, and they were still no closer to catching him. Three days, and JT had a bullet in his shoulder, a bullet that had missed his heart through sheer luck and Bright's nervous reflexes. Three days and over three dozen candid photos of Jessica and Ainsley, in their homes, on the streets, in work. Several in colour, just to show off the tiny red dot playing on their foreheads.

JT was the last warning they were going to get and Bright knew it. And Gil knew, with a certainty that sickened him, that the kid would not allow anyone else to be harmed over him.

"We can't play into his hands," Gil reasoned, his voice level, calm. Persuasive. "We can't just give him what he wants."

Bright snorted, shrugging. "It's just math, Gil. Just math. One life, to save four. It's a no-brainer."

Gil's heart sank as Bright avoided his gaze. When he looked back up from his loafers, that morbid determination was back in his eyes and a fear unlike anything Gil had felt in years gripped his heart.

"You shouldn't be here, Gil."

Bright lashed out, startling him, landing a solid punch on his temple that dazed him. He overbalanced and fell, but Bright caught him, hauling him over to one of the radiators hugging the wall. Gil fought, flailing, trying to get his arms around Bright, but the kid moved quickly, lashing out with an elbow that stunned him. He could only blink and scream inwardly at himself as he watched Bright take his own handcuffs from his belt and lock Gil's wrist to the radiator. Before he had his wits back, Bright had slipped the gun and keys from him too.

"Bright," he slurred, desperation forcing himself to sober. "Bright, we can talk about this."

"There's nothing to talk about, Gil," Bright said sadly, squatting in front of him, just out of reach. There were tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry you came here. I didn't want you to see this. It's the only way."

"Bright, _no!"_

Bright stood and looked down at the gun. Weighed it in his hands.

"Don't worry, Gil," he said, his voice shaking as much as his hand. "It'll be quick. I won't feel a thing." He looked up to meet Gil's blurring eyes. "It'll be okay."

"Bright, you _can't_ do this, you _can't!_ We can think of another way out of this, we can – we can _talk,_ just don't – _don't!"_

A muscle fluttered in Bright's jaw and it struck Gil how young he looked. How small.

"I want you to know," Bright said quietly, not looking at him, "that I know you'd do anything for me, Gil. You've always been there for me." He swallowed. Gil was too scared to breathe. With a deep breath, Bright met his gaze. "Whenever I think of my father, Gil, of what a father _should_ be, I see you. I love you, Gil. And I know you'll never be able to forgive me for this. And I'm sorry."

As if in slow motion, Malcolm turned away.

"No! Bright, please! Don't do this – _don't do this!"_

But he didn't stop. Didn't hesitate. Just walked calmly down the corridor, hesitating on the threshold to the last office on the left. His hand was a fist on the doorjamb when he looked back, one final time.

"Goodbye Gil."

He disappeared.

"No! _No!_ Bright, I'm right here! We can fix it! _Bright I love you! Don't do it!"_

He scrambled for his phone, praying for time. Shouting for Bright as he waited for the call to connect.

_"You find him?"_ was Dani's greeting, worry biting through the words.

"Get JT and get to the building site on Forty-First – _now, _Dani! There's no time!"

If the raw panic in his tone scared her, she didn't let on. The line clicked dead and Gil twisted, getting to his knees as he shouted for Bright.

"Remember when you were twelve, Bright? You were over visiting and you broke one of Jackie's figurines? Remember how scared you were, how I told you it was gonna be fine and you didn't believe me? And then," he said, unshed tears choking him as he reached for an abandoned screwdriver just out of reach. He reangled himself and caught it with his foot, dragging it closer. "And then Jackie came home, and you were so upset, but she just kissed your forehead and said, _there's nothing you could do that I couldn't forgive._ She meant that, Malcolm, and so do I! _Please_, don't do this! Just give me time! I can find us a way out of this, I know it! Think of Jessica – what is losing you gonna do to her? She won't survive it, kid, she won't. And Ainsley! She needs her big brother, Malcolm, she needs you. _I need you!"_

The screwdriver barely fit into the cuff's keyhole, but Gil was beyond caring. This _had_ to work. He was running out of time.

"I promise, kid, I _promise,_ I won't let anything –"

The gunshot split the air like a canon blast. Its echoes seemed to go on forever, a hundred extra horrors floating down the hall to lash against Gil's heart. He stilled.

"No," he gasped, eyes wide and staring at the point he'd last seen Bright. _"No."_

There was no sound from the office. Only silence. Dead silence.

_"NO! MALCOLM!"_

His scream ripped his throat and he wrenched the screwdriver with savage strength, breaking the cuffs and slicing his wrist. He didn't even feel the blood slip over his skin, he was already on his feet, already running, already begging –

He froze in the doorway. Breath vanished in his throat. A hand scrambled for the doorjamb. The world tilted, warped, and he was on the floor. Ice stole through him, burning away all memory of warmth.

Malcolm lay on his back, sprawled, one arm reaching to the side, the other crooked so the muzzle of the gun was angled toward his ruined temple. His eyes were closed, mouth slightly open. Blood and bone and brain matted the other side of his head, splattered across the unplastered walls.

It took Gil a long moment to understand the odd rasping sound was coming from him. Air was sawing through him with a ferocity that physically hurt, not stopping long enough to ease his lungs. Unsteadily, he got to his feet and half-walked, half-fell the few steps to Malcolm, a litany of denial falling like secrets from his lips.

He knelt by Malcolm's side. Watched as too fingers moved slowly to his neck. Waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Nothing.

No pulse. No tremor. No wild energy bursting at the seams. Malcolm was still. Silent.

Dead.

The sound that left Gil then did not sound human. It was the sound of a scarred heart being ripped bloodily in two. It was the sound of love as it twisted into grief. The sound of losing one of your reasons to live.

Tenderly, shaking, Gil scooped Malcolm into his arms, tucking his head under his chin and holding him close, rocking him back and forth as ragged sobs clawed their way out of his chest. Tears tumbled down his cheeks in disarray, desperate to escape the agony inside him, or maybe just to touch Malcolm one last time, to see him. He clutched him close as though Malcolm was his only link to air, to life. As though to let him go, even an inch, would be to die himself. Would be to make this permanent.

_Jackie,_ he pleaded, _take care of our boy._

He didn't know how long he held him, the smell of blood warring that of tears. Eventually, he heard footsteps. Heard his name being called. Dani. JT. His team. Who still needed him. Needed him to be their leader, their anchor. Needed him to let his son go.

Dani skidded into the room first, gun drawn. Whatever she was saying died on her tongue as she saw Gil, hunched over Malcolm on his knees. Gil was forcing himself to take great, heaving breaths, desperate for oxygen, for control. For an ounce of cold in the fire ripping him apart.

"G-Gil?"

With a supreme effort, Gil looked up. Dani was pale, kneeling on Malcolm's other side. There was confusion in her gaze, but also a tiny flicker of hope. She hadn't seen it yet, how bad it was, how final. Gil wanted her to have that moment, that last instant where Bright was still alive ... but her eyes fell to the blood congealing in Malcolm's hair. And she knew. Gil saw the moment she understood and a fresh wave of despair threatened to drown him.

A low thud as JT fell to his knees beside Dani, his arm still slung across his chest.

"Bright," he muttered, as though surprised. "No."

"What – what happened?" Dani managed, tears thick in her voice.

Hating himself, Gil laid Malcolm gently back down on the floor. Dani had taken his hand in hers. Gil laid his over Bright's forehead.

"He did it," he croaked, "to save us."

Dani shook her head. "No, no, no, no, no, he wouldn't, he would've found another way, he –"

Utterly spent, Gil looked up at her. "You know how he's been ever since Watkins, Dani. Since Claremont. This ... this was one step too far." How could his voice be so steady when the chattering genius that was his rock, his constant ever since Jackie died, was gone?

They didn't say anything for a long time. They just knelt there, Dani holding his hand, Gil stroking his hair. Then JT spoke, quietly, as though trying to make the words as unobtrusive as possible.

"We should call Edrisa."

Gil closed his eyes. "No." He couldn't bear that, not now. He couldn't see Malcolm zipped into one of those bags, laid on that slab like just another victim, waiting to be cut open and examined.

"Gil," JT urged, "we can't ... we can't leave him here. And if we don't move, he'll have – it'll be in vain." His voice shook and he cleared his throat. "We need to catch the bastard that did this before he goes after Bright's family."

Dani nodded once, a tear skipping from her lashes. "We have to. For – for Bright."

Too exhausted to speak, unable to tear his gaze from the eyes that would never open again, Gil nodded. He was distantly aware of JT making the call, of Dani speaking softly to him, but it didn't register.

When Jackie died, Malcolm had been there. Visited him every chance the FBI gave him. Called twice a day, at least. Talked to him about cases and types of swords and old cars. Malcolm had kept him above water as work had slowly brought him back from the yawning chasm he'd been lost in. He'd only made it out because of Bright.

He looked to the familiar face, peaceful now, in permanent sleep. How was he going to survive this? How was he going to tell Jessica Whitly that after everything they had survived, after everything Malcolm had been through, that he was gone?

How could he look her in the eyes and see the mirror of his own grief?

How could he ever look _himself_ in the eye again? He had sworn to himself to protect that little kid that'd saved his life. Who'd traded the security of having a father for a complete stranger, shattered his own world to save someone else's. Gil had failed Malcolm many times over the years. But never like this. This, he could never come back from.

He ran his trembling hand over Malcolm's hair, smoothing the delicate frown with his thumb.

"I'm sorry, Malcolm."


	2. What Edrisa Knew

"Edrisa?"

She started, whipping around with a bloodied rib cutter still in her hand. When she saw the speaker, she beamed, pulling away her mask.

"Bright! Hey!" She remembered the cutter and set it down on the tray. "Uh, what brings you here? Is there a murder? How are you, by the way?"

Bright shook his head, a smile that didn't reach his eyes flashing across his lips.

"Ah, I'm, uh ... there's no murder. I, um ... I need your help."

"Yeah?" Oh okay, maybe that tone was a _little_ too enthusiastic. But Bright had never visited her without a case as an excuse before. This was _great._ "Well, I'm happy to help."

That smile again. Something was troubling him. She resisted the urge to reach for his shoulder, clasping her hands and rocking on her feet instead.

"You've heard about, uh, the case I'm working on?"

She nodded, eyes wide. "Yeah, what a beauty! And by beauty," she added quickly, "I mean, like, intellectually. From the outside. Not for you. For you I'm sure it, y'know, sucks."

Bright swallowed. Was he paler than usual? He definitely didn't look right. But then, maybe that made sense.

"How's JT doing?"

Something dark flickered past his face. He nodded. "He's stable. Probably be discharged this afternoon. He was lucky."

Edrisa snorted. "He was _lucky_ 'cause you pushed him out of the way at the right second. Pre-tty impressive."

His expression didn't lighten.

"Um, sorry," she added. "I just meant –"

He held up a hand. "I know what you meant. I'm sorry, Edrisa, I've just got a lot on my mind and ... what I need to ask you, it's ... big. And terrible. But you're the only one who can help me."

She shifted her weight, the frail hope of a date decaying in her mind.

"Why me?"

"Because he doesn't know you're my friend."

_Friend._ Warmth blossomed in her chest, soft and delicious. Her cheeks ached.

"I'm so glad you think that about me. I consider you a friend, too. A good one."

His smile was a little more genuine now, small though it was.

"Thanks."

A thought occurred to her.

"When you say 'he', you mean the killer? Or would-be killer, I should say. Thanks to you."

Bright just nodded, face sombre once more.

"Well what is it?" she prompted when he seemed lost in his thoughts. He blinked at her and she noticed his hand tremble before he fisted it. He stepped forward, unleashing the full force of his gaze on her and she swallowed, some small part of her brain filing the moment away for future appreciation. His next words effectively murdered that part, though.

"I need you to help me die."

oOo

"This is a _really_ bad idea," Edrisa whispered again, the syringe shaking in her fingers.

"It's the only one I've got," Bright said. "And it'll work."

Edrisa snorted. "Unless it _kills_ you."

Bright looked at her. "Yeah. Unless it kills me."

She levelled him with a worried glare. "Tetrodotoxin is one of the most lethal subjects in nature, Bright," she reiterated. "More so than _cyanide._ If this dose is even a few micrograms off, you'll die. I'll be a murderer," she added, somehow only now realising this. She gulped, her tongue hitching into overdrive. "I mean, you could have a seizure, you'll be _paralysed_ at best, your heart could fail – and respiratory failure is the most common –"

"Edrisa," he said quietly, covering her shaking hand with his own. "If this is too much, I understand. You can still leave."

She watched him for a long moment, still shaking. If this went wrong, she'd lose her job. Go to jail. And Bright would be gone forever. She honestly wasn't sure which the worst outcome was.

But it was Bright. She trusted him. And his logic, scary though it was, was pretty unassailable.

"No," she said firmly. "I'm in."

For since this all started, Bright's smile was real. He rolled up his sleeve, then held out his hand. Edrisa stared at it blankly for a few seconds, then up at him.

"What are you doing?"

He frowned. "You're not injecting me, Edrisa," he said seriously, looking at her as though she was the crazy one.

"But I thought –"

"I need you for after – to make it look –" he swallowed, worked his jaw – "like suicide. To bring me out of it later."

"I'm not gonna let you inject yourself!" she laughed, worried he was serious.

"And I'm not letting you risk incarceration," he countered. "You're too good at what you do, Edrisa. The NYPD needs you."

Her shoulders slumped. "It needs you too, Bright."

Another fake smile.

With supreme reluctance, she handed over the syringe loaded with almost certain death.

This was such a terrible idea.

"You're clear on the plan?"

She nodded, eyes burning.

"Okay then. Here we go."

With a deep breath, Bright lined the needle up with the crook of his elbow, hesitated for half a second, and injected himself. Edrisa flinched.

"You've got about ten minutes," she said quietly. "Maybe less."

A door banged as it shut and they both glanced to the corridor, hearts lurching.

"Bright?" came Gil's voice. "Kid, come on. Where are you?"

They looked at each other. What little colour Bright had drained away, horror eroding his gaze.

"It was supposed to be a beat cop," he whispered, voice strangled.

"It's not too late to stop," Edrisa said quickly, tongue tripping. "I can call an amb –"

"No, no. I have to do this." He swallowed hard. "Give me a minute. I'll take care of him."

"Bright ..."

He swayed as he stood. Hesitated at the door. Then stepped out into view.

Edrisa tried not to listen. It was too private, too intimate. A tragedy seconds from coming to pass. She couldn't unhear the desperation in Gil's voice though, the climbing panic. The slight hysteria as Bright returned slowly to the room, making him sound unhinged.

"Goodbye Gil."

Gil's screams made her flinch. She stood, turning away, focusing on the supplies on the table by the wall. Bright laid Gil's gun gently down on it and she looked up, vision blurry.

"You don't have to do this," she whispered.

Bright turned tortured eyes on her. He looked like he was drowning. Or being burned alive. It was the look Edrisa imagined went with the most abused corpses. It did belonged to the dying. Not the living.

"It's the only way to save them." He took a breath. "You can leave, Edrisa. It's okay."

She was shaking her head before he'd finished talking. "I'm not leaving you until I have to."

Bright tried to smile but staggered, raising one hand to his temple. Edrisa reached for him.

"It's taking effect. No going back now."

He nodded once, and Edrisa guided him to the floor, wishing she couldn't hear Gil. She'd never heard him sound like that. He was always so composed, so measured. It wasn't right.

Bright's eyelids were fluttering. The few words he said were slurred and halting. He collapsed as he tried to lie down, Edrisa catching his head just before it hit the floor. He mumbled something she didn't catch and she blinked away tears, forcing the choking pressure down.

_"– there's nothing you could do that I couldn't forgive!"_

"Edrisa," he sighed, voice breaking, trying to look up at her through struggling eyelids. Pain shimmered over his face.

"It's okay, Bright," she whispered, hoping her could hear her over Gil's screamed reminiscence. "It's gonna be okay. I've got this. You rest now. Just ... don't die, okay?"

The corner of his mouth twitched, and for a second those striking eyes stared into hers. Then, with a soft exhale they fluttered closed, and he went limp in her arms.

She laid him carefully down, heart hammering. She didn't have much time. Doing her best not to think, she reached for the bottle of blood she'd stolen from the morgue and squirted it carefully over Bright's temple, then the opposite side of his head. Next, she picked up the bag of blood and brain matter – she'd even thrown in a few fragments of bone. Not that anyone would be looking too closely. That was her job, after all, and all she had to do was sacrifice her professional integrity and lie.

She picked up the silver gun Bright had brought and crouched by his head, blood bag held in her other hand. It barely shook. With a deep breath, she angled the gun.

"I really hope this works."

She pulled the trigger. The bag exploded on the wall, a wide spatter that looked almost black against the cream-grey plaster.

_"NO! MALCOLM!"_

Edrisa flinched. She had never heard such unfettered pain in someone's voice before. And it was_ Gil._ Biting back tears, she squeezed the remainder of the bag's contents over the side of Bright's head, obscuring the unmarked skin with recycled gore. She folded the bag in on itself and stuffed in her jacket pocket. Next, she carefully slotted the gun into Bright's right hand, manipulating his fingers around the grip and trigger, pressing his index against it for good measure.

A tear escaped her glasses and landed on his cheek. Sniffing, she wiped it away, then rested her hand there a moment.

_"Please don't die, Malcolm."_

She was out of time. And her job was done. She rose to her feet, looking at her handiwork. Her heart quivered. It was convincing. She couldn't even see his chest rising. That was normal for tetrodotoxin. Of course, it was also normal for tetrodotoxin to kill its victims if they weren't given medical attention within the first four to six hours. She may not have injected Bright herself, but if he died, it would be on her. Technicalities aside, she would be a killer.

She pushed that thought away, distracted by a shout as Gil made something clang.

With a final glance to the man she might never see again, Edrisa slipped through the emergency exit and ran down the stairs.

She still heard Gil's wail.

* * *

**_AN: Yes, tetrodotoxin is a real thing, derived from pufferfish, and yes, I took a few liberties with it to make the timeline smoother. Because I can._**


	3. Reality

It took an hour for the call to come in. It was easily the worst hour of her life.

"Hello?" Her voice was a shaking squeak. She cleared her throat and tried again, without much more success. "Hello?"

"Edrisa."

"JT ho- how are you?"

"Listen, Edrisa, we ..." It was odd hearing how subdued he was. JT was sturdy as a rock, always with a hint of dry humour in his voice. "We need you. Down on Forty-First Street. Bring, um, bring a small crew. Small as you can manage."

"I can manage fine alone if-if someone helps me with the body." Surely he was seeing right through her? She wasn't even convincing herself.

"Edrisa, it's, um ..." He heaved a breath. "It's Bright."

_Please please please –_

"Bright? What, he's gone and done something brilliant and dramatic again?" She felt sick, making jokes like that.

Another heavy sigh. "No, Edrisa, I mean it's Bright. The ... the body. Bright's dead."

Even knowing there was still hope, the words hurt to hear.

She didn't know how to react. Should she cry? Deny it? Hang up? What would make JT suspicious?

"I – um," she stammered, brain shorting out. "I'll be right there."

Gil had blood on his shirt. A stranger's blood, but, he thought it was Bright's. He couldn't take his eyes from him. Even knowing what to expect, Edrisa stopped in the doorway. It looked so real. It might still be.

Bright lay where she left him, but he'd been moved. His arms were by his sides, his head no longer tilted. Dani knelt by him, his hand in both of hers. Edrisa had never seen Dani cry before. Tears marred her cheeks like scars and when she looked up at Edrisa there was an emptiness to her eyes that ached just to look at.

Wishing she knew how to act this part, Edrisa knelt by Bright's other side, trying not to look at anyone. Their grief was a physical presence in the room, a pressure prickling on her skin like acid. Breathing deeply against it, she bent to examine the fake exit wound.

Gil shifted above her. "Can you –" His voice broke. He tried again. "Can you not do that here? He's – it's –"

"I can take him back to the lab," she said quietly. Gil tried to say something else but the words didn't sound like themselves and he quickly aborted, covering his face with his hand.

Keeping her eyes down, resisting the urge to check his pulse, Edrisa unfurled the body bag from her pack and laid it out beside Bright. Gil turned away with a strangled sound.

"I'll, um," she swallowed, "need help. Getting him in."

Dani just nodded. She laid Bright's hand down as though it would shatter and reached for his shoulders. She pulled him up into her arms, tucking his head against her neck, and Edrisa shimmied the bag under him. JT helped one-armed with his legs and soon he was disappearing into the black fabric.

"Wait," Gil managed, coming over to them. Edrisa's hand stilled around the zip, already at Bright's chest. Gil knelt. He raised a shaking hand and rested it on Bright's forehead. He left it there, his breathing loud and shuddering.

"I'm sorry, kid," he said softly. Then he pulled back and gestured to Edrisa to continue. Not looking at him, she pulled the zipper home, sealing Bright into darkness.

"Quinley is gonna find out about this," JT said quietly. They all looked at him and he raised a placating hand. "I know, I know. I don't want to talk about this either but now's our chance to catch him. He – he wanted Bright d-dead and ... He's gonna have to verify. We need to figure out how. And soon – our deadline's almost up and we still don't know who he's gonna try and off next."

"Death certificates are public record," Edrisa said, deciding she needed a few false starts before working in Bright's theory. "He could wait for that."

Dani shook her head. "He's not gonna wait for that. He must have a plan."

Gil stood with a sigh. "You two figure that out. I've got to call Jessica and tell her her son is dead."

There was a beat of dismal silence. Edrisa couldn't stop herself.

"You shouldn't – not yet. Give me time to –"

"To what, Edrisa?" Gil challenged, sounding exhausted. "There's nothing you can do to bring him back. Why make her wait? She –" he swallowed – "she deserves to know."

"I –" She stopped herself. Telling them the truth was too dangerous, at least until they had Quinley. And the clock was still ticking – Bright needed medical attention an hour ago, and she was the only one to help. Even doctors would assume he was dead. Having your heartrate lowered to one beat per minute tended to stump ECG machines.

Gil softened, ran a hand over his face. "I appreciate the sentiment, Edrisa. I'm sorry."

She just nodded.

"I need to go," he said, voice hollow, eyes drawn to the body bag. He couldn't bring himself to look at JT as he passed him. "Do what you need to do. Keep me in the loop, I'll ... I'll be back later."

"You got it, boss," JT said softly, with a hand on his shoulder. "Go do what you gotta do."

Edrisa watched him go. It felt like something with serrated fangs had burrowed into her chest and was gnawing on her heart. She was part of this. This pain. And if she didn't move fast, it would be permanent. Real.

Once Gil had disappeared, Dani rose slowly to her feet. She wiped her tears away, her expression schooled to a mask Edrisa knew she had worn before.

"We've gotta figure this out," she said, voice almost steady. She swallowed. "We miss our chance to get Quinley, that's it. There's no guarantee he won't still come after us, or –" she glanced down as her composure wavered – "or his family." She locked eyes with JT. "We can't let him down again."

Edrisa bit her lip.

"Bright ... had a theory."

oOo

Gil hesitated, finger poised to ring the doorbell. He took a deep breath past the jagged vines constricting his lungs and pushed it. The first time he'd done this he'd been in a very different mood. It had been a good day. Nice shift, bonding with the boys at the precinct. Then a call he volunteered to answer, eager to get a breath of fresh night air. Exchanged apologetic small talk with a smiling doctor.

Then he'd met a little kid with a serious face who had changed everything. Saved his life, knowing it would rip his own apart. Everything that'd happened since – every solved case, every saved life, an entire career of ups and downs, wins and losses, all his years with Jackie – a lifetime of moments, it was all thanks to Malcolm. Because of him. There was nothing Gil didn't owe him.

He had promised himself, that day, to look out for that brave little boy.

He'd never broken a promise before. Not when it mattered.

Jessica's assistant led him to the living room, saying Ms Whitly would be down in a moment. He looked around the opulent room, imagining a baby Malcolm learning to walk between the couches, chubby legs unsteady and face alight as his mother called him closer.

Gil could remember every single time he had done this. It wasn't something you could forget, telling someone their child was dead. You'd think it was hardest for young parents, whose children had barely had a taste of life, but it wasn't. Not always. A parent's love didn't lessen with age, didn't mellow. It couldn't acquaint itself with the possibility of losing the person they had raised, who held their heart in their chests. The pain wasn't any less sharp, any less acute. If anything, you just had more to grieve. More personality. More relationship. More memories, now precious in their scarcity.

How would Jessica react? Would she shut down? Faint? Attack him? God knows she'd be entitled.

She arrived in a flurry of speech, the rambling Malcolm had inherited filling the space between them as her heels clicked her closer.

"Gil! Thank_ God,_ I've been calling and calling my son and of course he won't answer. I know, I know, it's a dreadful case, but _please_ tell me it's over, tell me you found the bastard and I can get out of this house and – Gil?" She stopped, seeing his face.

He'd meant to say it gently as he could, to ease her into her new life. But she read it in his eyes.

"No –!" she gasped, the horror that was choking him unravelling in her eyes. "No, no, don't – _no!"_

He had to say it. Had to be sure she understood.

"I'm so sorry, Jessica." He needed a fresh breath to force the words out. "Malcolm – Malcolm died this morning."

There was a beat of stillness. Then Jessica collapsed.

Gil caught her, lowering her to her knees and wrapping his arms tightly around her. She melted into him, her head on his shoulder, hand a shaking claw around her mouth, and _screamed._

It wasn't a sound that fit the expensive decor and refined furnishings. Too savage to belong to this world of etiquette and refinement. It was brutal, primal, wrenching itself free of the very deepest part of her, giving voice to the agony ripping Gil apart.

"I'm sorry Jessica," he whispered over and over. "I'm sorry I failed him."

She didn't cry. She was beyond tears. Every breath bore the voice of her pain, shaking her with its force, threatening to tear her apart. He held her together, wishing he could do more, could fix this, could feel it for her instead, could go back and stop the gun –

Jessica's assistant clacked into the room, alarm painting her face. Gil looked up from Jessica's hair and saw her retreat quietly, giving them space.

_"My love,"_ Jessica wailed, her manicured nails biting into his arm, _"my little love, my – my Malcolm! My Malcolm!"_

Gil held her close as reality tore its way through her core. Reforging her in a furnace that might burn her beyond repair. He didn't try to tell her it was okay. He didn't promise any miracles, didn't offer hope. He simply held her as she moaned and rocked, crumbling into a Malcolmless existence.

Two broken hearts, bleeding as one.

* * *

_**AN: This would've been up sooner but Word had a spasm and I lost the whole frickin' chapter! Sigh. Your reviews are delightful, thanks so much for reading!**_


	4. Tick, Tock, The Dying Clock

Edrisa had never been a fan of time trials. In video games, in tests – the pressure of time ticking out no matter what you did, no matter how hard you worked or how feverishly you wished for just a few seconds more. It was like a vine under your skin, creeping along your spine, clawing at your muscles, digging through your veins and you know, once it reaches your neck, it's over. Time's up.

Malcolm had injected himself almost four hours ago. Three hours and thirty-eight minutes to be exact. Which left twelve minutes until the window to bring him back slammed shut. She could already see clear symptoms of cyanosis – his lips and fingertips were tinged blue from lack of oxygen. His skin was pallid, corpse-like, his breathing so faint she couldn't detect it. If he _was_ still breathing.

He was lying on one of her surgical tables, a white sheet covering his lower half. She'd removed his jacket but stopped there. Helpful though it would be to the deception, she couldn't just _undress_ him. It was _Bright._ And he wasn't dead. Not yet. Not if she could help it.

Which, right now, she couldn't. She had to play along, the act not yet over. She had to wait here, with a dying Bright, to see if his theory was right. If it wasn't, she'd just be standing here while his time ticked out.

She risked whispering. Reassurances, mostly. Updates on the plan, though she'd already filled him in once Dani and JT had left after helping her get him out of the bag. Unless he'd slipped into a coma, he was awake in there. Listening. Edrisa hoped for his sake that he'd passed out initially, when Gil found him. She didn't want to imagine experiencing that.

The door to the lab opened and Edrisa jumped, fumbling for something to make her look like she wasn't just chatting to a corpse. Which she did do, sometimes. But, alone.

Katie walked in, holding a file. Edrisa waved hello, her smile too big, too friendly. She liked Katie. Or she had.

"Dr Tanaka, I've got the revised file for the John Doe from the car wreck." She held up the folder questioningly, and Edrisa nodded for her to put it on the counter.

The John Doe had been identified yesterday afternoon. Right before Bright came to her with his plan.

"That's, uh, that's great!" She sniffed and turned away, hoping Katie would assume grief was fuelling the tears in her eyes, not rage. Everyone here knew how much Edrisa cared about Major Crimes. The team, not the – doesn't matter.

Katie came closer, her eyes on Bright. He looked a sight, hair still matted with dried blood and brain matter, blueish lips parted and a face pinched in a final frown.

"So it's true," she said quietly, bronze skin bunching in sympathy. "I'm so sorry, Dr Tanaka. I heard you two were close."

Was it her? She fit Bright's preliminary profile. A new hire, reserved. Curious about his dead body.

Or she might just be a nice new colleague expressing condolences. How did Bright _do_ this?

"Yeah, um," she stammered, "he was a good guy."

Katie pursed her lips, eyes still on Bright. "Shame he couldn't escape being a Whitly."

A cold shiver ran up Edrisa's spine. "He is _not_ a Whitly. His name is _Bright."_

Katie waved an apologetic hand, smiling up at her. "No, no, I just mean, with a father like that, suicide was always gonna be on the table, you know?"

_"Not_ for him," Edrisa spat, fists shaking at her sides. "He spends his life _helping_ people, making amends for something he never did wrong, and he's _strong,_ stronger than any of us – to survive so much trauma and still be _kind?_" She drew a shaking breath. "How dare you speak of him. How_ dare_ you pretend to know anything about him."

There was a beat of silence as Edrisa's anger sizzled in the air between them.

"Spent," Katie said quietly.

"What?"

_"Spent,_ not spends. You used the present tense. He's past tense now."

Was she _smiling?_

"Get. _Out."_

Katie shrugged and turned to leave, pulling her phone from her pocket. The door opened as she approached it and Dani and JT blocked her way.

"Excuse me."

"Katie Holbrook," JT said smoothly, "you're arrest for suspicion as accessory to conspiracy to commit murder. Turn around please."

Katie took a step back, one hand sliding into her lab coat pocket. "I don't know what you're talking about –"

"Then let me clear it up for you," Dani cut in, grabbing her unlocked phone and tapping into recent contacts. "You're working with Jason Quinley, targeting the family and team of Malcolm Bright. And you're gonna tell us where Quinley is, right now, or I'll make _sure_ you spend the next ten years making licence plates."

Edrisa didn't listen to Katie's babbling, her refusals and excuses – didn't even register Dani's questioning. Her heart was a hummingbird in her throat, panic choking her with a frenzy to act. She dove for the med bag under Bright's table and heaved it onto the tray by his hip. Her fingers fumbled with the zip in her haste to open it and she cursed under her breath. She froze for a moment, the bag valve mask and plastic box of vials staring up at her. Would this work? What if her math was off, or the drugs made it worse?

What if she was too late?

She glanced to Bright, lying still beside her. Her resolve hardened.

"I need another pair of hands over here!"

"Can it wait?" Dani called back, incredulous. Edrisa spared her half a glance and saw her holding a cuffed Katie, halfway out the door.

"No he can't!"

Edrisa grabbed the bag valve and placed the mask over Bright's nose and mouth before squeezing firmly. She counted under her breath and squeezed again, trying to match her own breathing to the steady rhythm he needed.

Someone said something but she didn't hear it. "I need help over here!"

Dani appeared by her side, eyes filled with pitying compassion.

"Edrisa, listen to me. There's nothing you –"

"No, you listen to me," she said in a rush, "Bright's not dead – at least not yet. We faked it, okay? The blood's not his, I put it there. He's been poisoned and if I don't make sure he's breathing properly now he's gonna be dead – for real dead – in minutes. It's already been too long!"

A very heavy silence pushed itself into the room, resisted only by the gentle _whoosh_ of the air being forced into Bright's lungs.

"What the fuck."

Edrisa glanced over at JT, still holding Katie with one hand. She'd never seen his eyes so wide before. She turned to Dani, still frozen.

"Please, Dani, I can't do this alone."

Dani gave her head a little shake, her expression still caught between horror and hope.

"He's – he's alive?"

Edrisa nodded, willing Dani to believe her. She glanced from Edrisa to Bright and back, hope battling grief across her face.

"Y-yeah, right, what do you need?"

Edrisa stepped aside, gesturing her forward. "I need you to breathe for him. One, two, squeeze, okay? Keep the seal firm around his face. Got it?"

Dani nodded, replacing Edrisa's hold on the bag and standing over Bright's head, her other hand gently holding the mask against his cheek.

"Hold up," JT said from the corner, drawing closer with Katie in tow. "Are you for real? He's – he's not –?"

Edrisa didn't spare him a glance. She opened the plastic box and pricked the first vial with a syringe. She wasn't even sure of the dose. Hell, just because it had prolonged the lives of a few mice did _not_ mean monoclonal antibodies would – or could – help Bright. There was a reason there was no cure for tetrodotoxin.

She squirted the bubbles out of the syringe and turned back to her charge. Her hands shook as she undid his cuff and rolled the sleeve back, revealing a pale elbow. She took a deep breath, remembering Bright's calm tones as he talked her through saving a different life, only weeks ago. This was no different. She'd done it then, she'd do it now.

She nudged the needle under his skin, then pushed the plunger home.

Nothing happened.

"Did it work?" Dani asked, her voice uncharacteristically unsteady.

Edrisa shook her head. "I don't know what's meant to happen. Maybe?"

"You don't _know?"_ JT repeated. Edrisa glanced up at him and saw he'd cuffed Katie to a cabinet handle and was drawing closer. "Tanaka, what the hell?!"

"They don't exactly cover this in med school okay!" she half-yelled. "I don't know what I'm doing!" She shook her head. "Except I do, I do, I googled it."

"Oh, she googled it," JT said to Dani, his tone heavy with sarcasm.

"What can we do?" Dani cut in, her hands miraculously steady over Bright. "Edrisa!"

She was thinking. What Bright really needed was a hospital. Or EMTs. Someone properly qualified and _experienced _in treating _living_ people. But that was only if they believed her that the guy with no detectable heartbeat was still alive. The face that he was lying on morgue gurney was not gonna help that.

And then, there was the last thing in her stolen bag.

Oh hell.

"JT," she said, voice firm and trembling, "I need you to open his shirt."

"I – are you serious?"

"Unless you want him to die for real then _yes_, I'm serious!"

JT blinked at her, then leant forward and started undoing Bright's buttons.

"Okay," Edrisa breathed. "What he needs is air. Respiratory failure is the primary cause of death for victims of tetrodotoxin."

"Tetra what?"

"IV is crucial," she continued, ignoring him. She reached around the dreaded metal in the bag and pulled out an IV bag. She only had one, meaning she had a little over half an hour to bring Bright back to the point an EMT would believe. "JT, grab me that pole."

_This is no different than setting up an exsanguination, _she told herself as she readied the IV port. _Totally the same. Just fluids and skin. Easy._ She hooked the bag on the pole and grabbed the second vial from her box, trying desperately to ignore a cutting little voice in her head telling her that all this was only procrastinating. She knew what Bright really needed.

"Hook this up to his chest," she told JT without looking at him, placing a portable ECG on Bright's stomach. JT attached the electrodes without hesitation and Edrisa was thankful for military first aid training.

"He – he's cold," Dani mumbled between them, her eyes on Bright's lax face. Her hand rested against his cheek, her fingertips keeping the mask in place. She looked up at Edrisa, hope dying in her eyes. "He's cold, Edrisa."

"That's okay," she said bracingly, trying to channel Bright's boundless optimism in the face of crushing odds. "That's just 'cause his heartrate is so low."

As if on cue, JT switched the ECG machine on and a low, dull tone permeated the air. Unbroken.

JT and Dani exchanged a harrowing look.

"Edrisa," JT tried, his voice firm and gentle like a parent telling their kid Santa Claus wasn't real.

"Don't say it," she snapped, reading the third vial and injecting anticholinesterase into the IV. "It's gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine, Bright!"

She felt the other two look at each other again as she turned back to the bag. There were no other steps. No more delaying.

She pulled the intubator out with shaking hands and set it on the table by Bright's leg.

"JT –" she cleared her throat and tried again, willing her voice to steady. "JT, I need you to turn this on when I tell you, okay? Level – level two."

JT eyed the machine doubtfully, but did as he was told. Maybe he'd decided she needed to live out her delusion, try everything until she believed Bright was dead.

She really hoped he wasn't right.

Willing herself not to shake, she pulled the laryngoscope and breathing tube from the bag.

"Dani, I need you to move. Keep bagging until I say."

She took Dani's place over Bright and froze.

This was _Bright._ This was a living – _dying_ person in front of her, not some corpse she and a bunch of other med students were practicing on. She'd never intubated a living person before. Never had to. Never _wanted_ to. And this wasn't just anyone. This was Bright. This was her friend. If she got this wrong, damaged his trachea or inflated his stomach, he'd be too weak to fight off the complications. He might have survived all this time under one of the most deadly poisons nature had concocted, only to be killed by her.

There was no way she could do this.

"Edrisa?"

The laryngoscope rattled with the force of her shaking.

"Edrisa. Look at me."

_Edrisa. Look at me._

She looked up, expecting to see Bright's amazing eyes steadying her. Instead, she saw Dani's calm, deep gaze. She latched onto them, and suddenly she was breathing again, but she didn't remember stopping.

"Edrisa," Dani continued, something fierce and bright shining in her eyes. "You can do this. Bright asked for your help with all this, didn't he?"

Unable to speak, Edrisa nodded.

Dani smiled. "That's because he trusted you. He trusted you to save him. He knew you could do this, Edrisa. He believed in you. And so do I. _You can do this._ You can _save_ Bright."

"Dani," JT cautioned, putting his hand on her shoulder, but Dani shook him off, half-looking at him as she snapped.

"I'm not ready to give up on him!"

_Give up on him._ No. Neither was she.

With a deep breath, Edrisa nodded for Dani to remove the mask. With trembling fingers, Edrisa eased Bright's jaw down. Another deep breath. She needed to be calm. Still. Focused.

_Just do it._

She lowered the tongue of the laryngoscope between Bright's teeth, guiding it carefully down his throat. Slipping it into his trachea. Not breathing, she nudged it gently upwards, enough to thread the breathing tube into place. Slowly, _slowly,_ she pulled the scope out, wincing as it clicked on Bright's teeth.

_Holy shit she did it._

"Tube!" she said, voice cracking, hand outstretched. JT placed the thick blue breathing tube into it and she attached it to the valve on the narrower one. She nodded at JT to turn the breathing machine on and Bright's chest rose noticeably, then calmly fell once more.

"Oh fuck," she sighed, slumping where she stood. "I am _never_ doing that again."

Dani was about to say something, but she was interrupted by a brief, decisive _beep._ All three of them turned to the ECG. A tiny peak was veering to the left of the screen, but they'd all seen it.

A heartbeat.

Edrisa managed not to collapse, but leaned both hands either side of Bright's head and took a moment to simply breathe. She'd done it. _She'd done it._

"B-Bright?" JT was staring at the profiler in open wonder. He raised his gaze to Edrisa, half-pointing to the ECG. "That – he – was that a blip?"

Edrisa nodded, only realising now how blurry the scene was. She took her glasses off and wiped her eyes. "I told you he was still alive."

"But that's – he's – his heart –?"

A hysteric laugh bubbled out of her chest. "Yeah, I know! You can still live on one beat per minute. For a while anyway. The – the drugs I gave him should help with that. But breathing was the main thing. Look!" she exclaimed, pointing to Bright's lips. "See?" Already, the intensity of the blue was being eroded by a soft pink.

The others looked at her, nonplussed, and she rolled her eyes, laughing because it was easier than crying.

"It's working! His blood is reoxygenating. He might – he should be fine now. All we've gotta do is call an amb –"

She was cut off abruptly as Bright jerked violently on the table. They all stared at him for a moment, frozen, as he convulsed, eyes still closed, tubes twitching in his throat.

"Hold him down!"

Edrisa lunged for the tubes, trying to hold his head steady as his body seized. Dani laid both arms across his chest, trying to still his twitching arms. JT leaned over his legs, pinning them under his weight and with his good arm as Bright bucked and jerked, back arching, chest straining.

"What's happening?" Dani cried, trying to keep the IV in place as Bright's convulsions worsened.

"It's a side effect! He needs activated charcoal to break down what's left of the poison!"

The ECG beeped again. And again. Then twice, too close together.

"But that's a good sign, though, right?" JT asked, nodding to the heart monitor, still struggling to hold Bright's legs against the table.

"Uh, no," Edrisa managed, now bracing Bright's head with her elbows as she tried to steady the breathing tubes. "That's arrhythmia, that's not good!"

"What's –"

"Irregular heartrate! Okay, we really need an ambulance now!"

Laughter, high and mirthless, burst their tense bubble. As one, they looked to Katie, still handcuffed to the cabinet by the door.

"After all that," she chuckled, "you're still gonna lose. You can't beat Jason. Not when _justice_ is on his side."

"What the hell are you talking about?" JT snapped.

"That piece of shit Whitly killed Jason's brother – my cousin – and got away with it. Just because Dom was a criminal, just because he got caught – Whitly threw him in jail and he_ died_ because of him. Shivved to death in a windowless room just because _he –_" she jutted her chin at Bright – "wanted to play hero and frame an _innocent man_ for –"

"Oh shut up!" JT barked. "No one gives a shit! Edrisa, what do we do?"

"We –"

As quickly as it started, Bright stilled. They all looked at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The ECG was still beeping irregularly, two at once then twenty seconds or more before another solitary beat. Gingerly, they released Bright and stood back.

"We need an ambulance," Edrisa huffed, wiping an arm across her forehead. "And we need her –" she gestured to Katie – "to lead you to Quinley because I did _not_ just intubate my freakin' _friend_ only to have some psycho shoot him in hospital."

Dani held up Katie's phone.

"I think I've got an idea."


	5. Bitter Justice

Ainsley joined the tightly packed throng of reporters on the steps of the sixteenth precinct. Ger, her camera op, waited in the outer ring, adjusting the rig on his shoulder. Impatience fluttered in her stomach. She was meant to be reporting on a break-in a block away but when the studio got wind of a special announcement she and Ger were sidelined, being the closest to the building. Maybe she'd shoot Malcolm a text, see if he knew what was up. Could be worth ambushing him in his loft later, maybe scrounge up some leads. And if her persistence annoyed him, well, that was her right as little sister.

A spokesperson for the NYPD stepped outside, wearing a grey suit and sober expression. Ainsley's stomach twisted in excitement. She knew that look. That was the look that went with condolences and the knowledge that the media were about to pick a statement apart for hidden truths. She flicked on her microphone and held it up, inching closer to the podium.

"Thank you for coming," the spokesperson said, casting unseeing eyes on the crowd. "I have a short statement and will not be taking questions at this time. What I'm about to say is sensitive and I'd appreciate if you all would respect my precinct's privacy during this difficult time."

Murmurs rustled through the crowd as they collectively shuffled closer. Ainsley was right. There'd been a death. And not just a beat cop, someone important.

"You may have heard," the man continued, "of a duo of homicides last week that targeted one of our units. The victims were people the unit had previously saved on earlier cases and as you can imagine, the loss hit us hard. What you don't know was that a man contacted Major Crimes claiming responsibility for the deaths and promising to commit more murders if his demands were not met."

He paused and Ainsley had a moment to appreciate her brother's ability to always be in the thick of things – anything that happened in Major Crimes, Malcolm would know about.

"As you know, the NYPD does not negotiate with such threats. The Major Crimes unit worked the case despite one of their own being the focus of the threat, and Detective Tarmel was wounded in the field and serious threats were made against several civilians."

The spokesperson sighed and turned a page over.

"To neutralise these threats, NYPD consultant Malcolm Bright took his own life this morning in an attempt to protect the lives of his team from the killer. The suspect is still at large but we are closing in on his location and will have an update on that soon. Mr Bright will be in our prayers. His sacrifice reminds us of the dangers of our jobs here at the NYPD, and the bravery of our officers. Thank you."

The reporters surged around her but their babble never reached her ears. She stood there, frozen, mic still raised.

_Malcolm Bright took his own life this morning._

That couldn't – there must be – he wouldn't, she knew he wouldn't, he'd _promised _her he'd never try again_,_ he _swore he wouldn't leave her._

Someone bumped into her and she staggered. The spokesperson was waving the questions away, disappearing back into the precinct. Slowly, the reporters dispersed, phones to ears, voices low and tense, giving orders, sharing tips.

They were reporting her brother's death.

Her brother's suicide.

Malcolm was gone?

A hand grabbed her shoulder, turning her around and sound rushed back to her in a shout.

"Ainsley! Didn't you hear me?" Concern twisted Ger's face. "Hey, are you okay? We've gotta go report on the break-in. You good?"

Tears warped her vision. The mic shook in her hand. With her other she brought her phone up to see the text she had just sent him. Asking for a favour for work. Wanting a lead on a story. Not knowing he _was_ the story.

"Ainsley? Are you crying?"

This was going to destroy their mom.

"I have to go," she said, voice cracking, pushing the mic into Ger's chest. "F-family emergency, I've-I've got to go." She turned and walked away before Ger could say a word, hand flying out to flag a taxi.

This didn't make sense. Malcolm had _promised_ her after the last time, he'd looked her right in the eye and held her hand and _sworn_ he would never try that again. She'd believed him. Even with everything that'd happened to him lately, with Watkins and stabbing their father and all the other shit she didn't know about, he'd been doing okay. He always took his meds, he was around people all day, he –

_Malcolm Bright took his own life this morning in an attempt to protect the lives of his team from the killer._ _Serious threats were made against several civilians._

Ainsley's breath stilled in her chest as she understood. The taxi sailed by familiar streets but she didn't see any of them.

If someone had targeted Major Crimes' old victims, killed people Malcolm had saved ... he'd feel responsible. His friend had been shot, too, Tarmel. Ainsley'd met him in the hospital after Watkins had attacked them. What if the killer had targeted Malcolm specifically? What if she was the civilian? That must be it. It was the only thing that made sense. Malcolm would never willingly break a promise to her, not if he felt he had any other choice. He wouldn't do it without talking to her. He'd say goodbye.

Unless he was being watched. And seeing her would put her in danger. He'd do anything to protect her.

He'd die to save his family.

The cab slowed to a gentle stop and Ainsley looked out the window at her home. The familiar door was once again blocked by bodies, reporters already hounding for a statement.

This was real.

Numbly, she paid the driver and stepped out, hand shaking on the door.

Had Gil even told Mom yet? Did she know?

One of the reporters saw her and turned, barking questions before she'd even closed the cab door. Others turned until they were all looking at her, faces obscured by lenses as cameras flashed and she wiped her tears away, frowning at the ground as she pushed her way through.

These people shouldn't even know to be here. Malcolm didn't want to be a Whitly anymore. Another thing Watkins stole from him. Or maybe that had been her interview.

"Ainsley, can you comment on the circumstances of your brother's death?

"Will you be doing an exposé?"

"Could your brother's suicide be construed as penance for your father's murders?"

"Ainsley, how does it feel to be an only child?"

She stopped dead. Turned to see a thin man with black hair and dark eyes smirking down at her. He had his phone extended to her, ready to record her answer.

"I am _not_ an only child," she said coldly, throwing hate through her eyes.

The reporter grinned shamelessly, enjoying her reaction and she turned away, shoving people aside as she fought for the door.

Death couldn't take away a lifetime of having the best big brother she could've asked for. Couldn't erase the memories of building forts and playing Lego, of scrambling into his bed after a nightmare even though his were so much worse. Death couldn't make her forget all those times she'd come to him in tears over some break up and he'd held her and told her they were idiots, that she was worth so much more than how they treated her, that he'd beat them up if she wanted and that always made her laugh because he was the one who always came home with bruises. Death could not change her identity. She was a sister. She always would be. She wasn't about to stop loving Malcolm just because he was dead.

She would always have a brother.

She just couldn't hug him anymore.

Ainsley shoved the door open just as her composure broke. Ragged, violent sobs ripped through her, tears blinding her as she stumbled to the dining room. Pain like she had never known was burrowing inside her, turning her heart into a chasm of stolen calm, a foundation she'd never truly understood crumbling under the weight of the idea that she was alone now. There was no one else who knew what it was like to be the Surgeon's child. No one else to commiserate and celebrate with over having Jessica Whitly for a mother. No one who understood her so deeply words were only ever optional.

She only knew she was on her knees when the pain of contact with the hard floor registered through the haze of grief. A wail stretched itself out of her throat, twisting and keening and it didn't sound like her at all. If Malcolm heard her make a sound like that he'd be so worried.

_Malcolm._

_Please, I need you. Please don't leave me._

"Ainsley?"

She looked up, blinking for clarity and saw her mother, being held up by Gil. Her expression was a fresh shock of pain. She knew.

_"Mom,"_ she moaned, unwrapping a hand from around her middle to reach for her. _"Malcolm!"_

Jessica straightened, pushed herself away from Gil, and came to kneel by Ainsley, wrapping her in her arms and holding her almost as tightly as she needed to be held.

"I know, I know," she whispered, her voice rougher than usual but oddly steady. "I know my love. I know."

"He c-can't be –"

"I know."

"He's my brother!"

"Shh, darling. I'm here. I'll always be here."

Ainsley buried her face against her mother's neck, clinging to her like she had the night her father was taken away only now there was no youth to protect her. No confusion, no blind trust that it would be okay.

No Malcolm to protect her from the truth.

How could he do this to them? A fierce flame of hate seared through her and in its wake she felt more raw than she ever had. She could feel each death throe of her love as grief tore into it, mutating it into something dark and heavy.

She burrowed deeper into her mother's hold and cried.

oOo

Martin had always loved TV time. Best part of his day. More often than not he got to see his little girl and keeping up with New York made it easier to pretend he was still out there. Plus, when you knew what to look for, reports could hold insights into cases that might bring Malcolm by. Martin had a reputation to uphold at this stage. He was probably Major Crimes' most valuable informant, a consultant second only to his son and, come on, that was only because one of them was allowed to go to crime scenes.

It made for some entertaining thought experiments, fancying himself an asset to the cops, picking apart the killer's mistakes. It might go against his moral code, putting good, creative people behind bars, but, such were the sacrifices you made for your family.

The commercials ended and a little thrill swept through him as he recognised Malcolm's precinct. A spokesperson stepped up to the podium, his face as grey as his suit.

"Oh Mr David," he called, waving a hand. "Could you turn it up a smidge? It's my boy's work!"

Mr David obliged, clearly not sharing his enthusiasm. Martin ignored him, turning his attention to the screen. Ainsley would probably be on after, she usually had a segment on –

_ "– NYPD consultant Malcolm Bright took his own life this morning in an attempt –"_

Martin blinked at the screen. Mr David rose from his chair, concern pinching his face. Martin could count on one hand how many times Mr David had let anything show so clearly on his face and this was – what had Grey Suit just said?

"Martin?"

"I, uh ..."

_Malcolm Bright took his own life this morning._

His boy was dead?

_Took his own life._

No. No, no. No, he wouldn't. He couldn't. They'd made a deal. Martin was to get bi-weekly visits, phone calls twice a week at least, that was the deal that's what he'd _arranged._

No more murders, no more case consultations, no more visits breaking up the monotony.

Twenty years in a whole for nothing.

A deep throb in his chest matched his rising heartbeat, the weakened muscle warning him to calm down but he couldn't even feel the sharp stabs of air gusting past his teeth.

Ainsley's voice echoed in his mind, the words fanged and biting.

_You claim to care about your son but what you did to him twenty years ago harmed him irreparably._

He wouldn't have killed himself, he loved his work, he wouldn't do that to –

_He's has been diagnosed with complex PTSD, generalised anxiety disorder, night terrors._

But he handled all that, he was strong, he was – he was –

_Doctor Whitly, do you know what happens to the human body when it withstands that must stress for that long a period of time? He was fired from the only job he was ever good at. He hasn't been in a stable relationship for years. And the ten years he went without seeing you were by far the happiest, healthiest of his life._

He'd seen him three times in the last month. Had that – did he not _enjoy_ the visits? Deep down?

_What can that say about you except that you were an absolutely terrible father?_

He was a good father, he had been, he – he'd been _good –_

_He just wanted to love you and you caused him so much pain._

_What kind of a father does that?_

_Malcolm Bright took his own life this morning._

The air halted. Lungs worked futilely. Heart ached, throbbed with every beat. A new pain expanded in his chest, obliterating muscle and tissue and blood, consuming them with a blistering pressure that clawed at his throat, raked along his spine, searing through his mind. He didn't hear Mr David call out. Didn't see him rush to his bed. He didn't even hear his own raw scream.

All he knew was his boy was dead, and it was his fault.

Mercifully, that's when the blackness took him.

oOo

Eventually, Ainsley ran out of tears. When her breathing had eased into regularity, Gil pushed himself off the wall where he had been watching helplessly, pulled out two chairs by the table and helped her and Jessica off the floor to sit.

Ainsley took his offered tissue and dried her face. She sniffed. "Do you – do you know what happened?"

Gil cast a worried glance at Jessica. Her eyes were flat, dead, the spark of purpose that had blazed at the sight of her broken daughter already dimming.

She caught his look and rolled her eyes.

"I can take it, Gil. It's hardly going to make it worse, is it?"

Gil shifted uncomfortably but nodded.

"I was there," he said once he could trust his voice. "He'd, uh, left the precinct. Went to a building site downtown." He had to close his eyes against the memory, but he forced himself to say it. "I tried to stop him. He hit me, cuffed me to a radiator. I ... I was shouting to him, begging him not to do it, but he ... this case, he just ... he didn't want to risk any of us."

"How did he do it?" Ainsley asked, her voice so quiet and for a moment Gil only saw a sad five-year-old in her eyes.

He cleared his throat. Shifted to his other foot.

"Gunshot. Right temple."

Jessica let out a shaky sigh and put a hand to her forehead. She was so pale Gil moved closer, half-ready to catch her if she fell off the chair.

"My Malcolm," she whispered, eyes wide and staring at nothing. Ainsley reached for her other hand and squeezed.

"I'm – I'm sorry I couldn't stop him," Gil ground out, unable to look at either of them.

"It's not your fault, Gil," Ainsley said at once, turning those young eyes on him. "No one could've. Not if he ... not if he decided." She took a shaky breath. "It was the case, right?"

Gil swallowed. "The case was ... the trigger, yes. But I think ... I think this may have been coming. I just can't tell."

"He was struggling," Jessica said quietly. "He had nothing to keep him afloat. Just the other day we toasted to something happy and he couldn't think of a thing." She sighed. Looked up at Gil. "That job may have killed him but it was also the only thing keeping him alive. The only thing that gave him hope."

Gil took a moment to blink back the tears. He put a hand on Jessica's shoulder.

"We weren't the only thing, Jessica. He loved you – both of you – more than anything."

A very brittle silence fell between them.

"What's his name?" Ainsley asked, anger coiling in her tone. "The suspect who did this."

"Jason Quinley. We IDed him yesterday. Here." He stepped to the end of the table, where the file he'd given Malcolm to show Jessica still sat. He flipped it open and pulled out the DMV photo. "He's a technician in Brooklyn. Malcolm was instrumental in arresting his brother, who was killed in prison. Quinley blames him. Blamed," he corrected quietly.

Ainsley frowned at the photo. "You're sure this is him?"

"Of course. Why?"

"I've seen him."

"What?"

She rose, eyes alight with fury.

"He's right outside. I thought he was a reporter. Asked me what it was like to be an only child."

There was a moment of utter silence. Without a word, Gil turned, one hand reaching back for his handcuffs. Sharp clacking echoed behind him and Jessica brushed by, reaching the door ahead of him, ignoring his warning.

She flung the door open and stalked out, freezing for a moment as the reporters turned their flashes on her. Before Gil could catch up she was moving again, hands outstretched as she lunged for a thin man with a phone held high.

"YOU MURDERED MY SON!" she howled, grabbing Quinley around the neck and shoving him against the railing. "YOU TOOK HIM FROM ME!"

"Mom, stop! Stop!"

"Jessica!"

Gil skidded to her side, reporters pressing close for better shots. He put a hand on her shoulder, the other on her wrist, grip firm as she choked Quinley.

Who was smiling.

Ignoring his own rage, Gil forced his voice to be calm. Persuasive.

"Jessica, listen to me. You kill him you go to jail and we both know Malcolm wouldn't want that! You're already under investigation after Claremont – don't make things worse for yourself!"

_"He killed my son,"_ she growled, face contorted in pain and fury. She didn't look like herself. All trace of manners long gone, replaced by a simple, feral energy.

"I know. I know he did. And he'll pay. _Believe me_, he'll pay if it's the last thing I ever do. But _your son_ gave his life to protect yours. Don't throw that away. Don't give up your freedom for something that won't change anything." He swallowed to stop his voice cracking, speaking more softly as hesitation flickered in her eyes. "Killing him won't bring Malcolm back."

"Listen to your boyfriend, Jessica," Quinley croaked, still grinning. Enjoying this.

"Mom. Please."

Jessica tore her gaze away from Quinley and looked to her daughter. Gil didn't take his eyes off her but saw the moment she chose Ainsley over herself. Her expression crumpled and she withdrew her hands from Quinley's throat, reaching out for Ainsley instead.

Gil wasted no time.

"Jason Quinley," he said, teeth gritted, "you're under arrest for homicide, assault and conspiracy to commit murder. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right –"

"Were you there when he did it, Arroyo? Did you see his brains splatter the wall? I wish I could've seen it. No more than that bastard deserved."

Gil shoved him into the gate, tightening the last cuff with a wrench. He leaned in, lips inches from Quinley's ear so the reporters wouldn't hear.

"You're lucky there're witnesses, Quinley. You killed one of our own. The NYPD doesn't take kindly to that. And accidents happen in precincts. I'd watch what I said if I were you."

Quinley snorted, unfazed. "I didn't kill anyone, Lieutenant. You've got no proof."

It was Gil's turn to laugh. "You think Malcolm would kill himself and leave even the slightest chance that you'd go free? He's been two steps ahead of you this whole time. We've got enough evidence tying you to Andi and Spencer to put you away for life. Never mind the bullet we pulled out of Detective Tarmel matches your own gun." He tutted, yanking Quinley back and spinning him around to the sidewalk as the reporters parted like ants. "Your case won't even go to trial."

Gil glanced back to Jessica. Ainsley had her arms around her and was guiding her back inside. They both looked ... hollow.

The uniforms Gil had placed to watch Jessica saw him coming and opened the back door for Quinley. Gil relished the moment he shoved his head into the car, slamming the window over his stoic face.

"Get him to the precinct," he told the officers. "Make sure Detectives Tarmel or Powell process him, alright? No one else."

"Yes sir."

"Our stake is done?"

Gil glanced from the officer to Jessica's closing door and back.

"Yeah, yeah it's done. I'll watch over them tonight."

Both cops nodded and Gil turned back to the house. The crowd of reporters had swelled, more clearly summoned by the drama of an arrest from their own midst. Gil ignored them as he pushed through, not even hearing their shouted questions.

It was a relief to close the door on the chaos. The house was quiet. Too quiet. As though it too were mourning. He stayed a moment in the hallway, just breathing.

They had Quinley. Any accomplices he'd engaged would soon follow.

All that left was the funeral. And then ... life. Without Malcolm.

Suddenly feeling unnaturally heavy, Gil trudged back to the living room where the women were holding each other on the couch. He'd left his phone on the floor where Jessica had collapsed and stooped to pick it up.

"I, em. I can leave, if you two want some ... some time. I'll keep an eye, outside, for a while. Just make sure Quinley didn't have any surprises planned."

Jessica was shaking her head before he'd finished talking.

"Stay, Gil. I ... just stay. He-he'd want you to."

He almost managed to smile at that, and quickly looked down at his phone as a wave of gratitude and grief washed over him. He unlocked the screen.

Seven missed calls from JT. Ten from Dani.

Shit.

"Gimme a minute," he muttered, turning away, already bringing the phone to his ear. The call connected as he stepped into the living room.

"Gil?"

"Dani – what's going on, I didn't have my phone, are you –"

"Bright's alive!"

Gil blinked.

"What did you say?"

"He's alive, Gil. He's alive. He's en route to the hospital, Edrisa's with him. They might be there by now. And we have Quinley's accomplice – we staged a press release to draw him out, we think he'll –"

"He came to the Whiltys' house," Gil stammered, "I got him. What – what were you saying about Bright?"

"Gil," Dani said slowly, over-enunciating each syllable. "Bright is alive. _Malcolm's alive._ Edrisa –"

Everything shattered. Hope exploded like an atomic bomb inside his chest, consuming him in an instant, overriding the pain gnawing at his soul with a bright, breathless purpose: get to Malcolm.

"What hospital?"

"Metro General, but Gil –"

"I'm on my way. You two deal with Quinley. I'll keep you posted on Bright."

"But Gil –"

"I know. I'm leaving now."

He hung up. The phone shook in his hand. Energy hurtled through him, zinging in his blood, making him lightheaded.

Malcolm was alive. He'd _survived_.

A flicker of horror caught in his chest and in seconds it was a fire. What had he done? He'd told Jessica her son was _dead. _He'd – he'd been there. He'd checked for a pulse and he'd fucked it up, had been too quick to believe Malcolm was gone, hadn't trusted – He'd need surgery. An injury like that, it could take hours. And after, there could be a coma.

Ice shivered down his spine.

There would be brain damage. He wouldn't be the same. Mightn't be able to talk. That sharp mind that Gil had always been so in awe of could already be lost. Everything that made Bright _Bright_ might have been killed after all.

But that didn't matter. Malcolm was more than his intellect. He was strength and compassion and terrible jokes and enthusiasm. He'd recover. Gil would make sure of it. He'd take time off work if he had to, help Jessica get him back on his feet. Hell, he could teach him how to walk again if he had to. Go to every physical therapy session, every doctor's appointment. He could make flashcards with the alphabet. He would make up for his failure today. He would earn back his place in their lives.

Malcolm would be okay. Maybe not the same. But he was alive.

Nothing else mattered.


	6. The Awful Truth

"I don't understand, Gil, you said he was _dead,"_ Jessica said again, looking at him from the passenger seat.

Gil sighed. "I _know_ that. I was wrong. I thought – I didn't feel a heartbeat. But does it matter?" _He might still die._

"Just – drive faster."

He edged the accelerator down another quarter inch, streaking through a light just as it turned red. Someone blared their horn at him but the sound was lost to his siren. They sped through the streets, anticipation simultaneously lengthening each second and compressing the minutes so they arrived at Metro General before any of them were ready for what awaited them inside.

Gil led them to the reception. A terse conversation led them to the fourth floor nurses' station.

"I'm looking for Malcolm Bright, he was admitted with –"

"Gil!"

He turned to see Dani rising from a chair. Ignoring the nurse, he turned to her, but Jessica spoke first.

"How is he?"

Dani opened her mouth to speak but Gil caught the flicker of – was it fear? – that contorted her brows. She put her hands together.

"It's, em ... complicated. Edrisa has a private waiting room. We'll tell you everything in there."

"Oh God," Jessica muttered. Gil wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she leant into him. She was shaking again.

Edrisa was pale. She leapt to her feet as they entered, wringing her hands.

"JT with Quinley?" Gil asked, needing to fill the suddenly awkward silence as the Whitlys nervously sat.

"Yeah. He's processing him."

"I'm really glad you got him," Edrisa babbled. "And we got Katie – well, JT and Dani got Katie, I was kinda just _there –_"

Jessica raised a hand. "Excuse me, but can someone tell me how my son is?" She looked to Dani. "Is he in surgery?"

Dani and Edrisa exchanged a loaded glance.

"No, he's not."

Gil's stomach plummeted to the basement.

"Why not?"

Dani turned sombre eyes on him. "You should sit."

"Dani, just tell me. Is – did he –" he took a breath, – "did he die while we were on the way?"

Jessica made a strangled sound and covered her mouth with her hand.

"No, no he's still alive," Dani said quickly. She glanced to her clasped hands. "He ... he never shot himself. There was no bullet wound."

There was a beat of silence. Then Gil huffed a humourless laugh.

"What are you talking about? I saw it, he – his _brains_ were –"

"That was me," Edrisa cut in, eyes tearful behind her glasses. "I did that. I made it look like he'd shot himself."

"I don't understand," Jessica said slowly.

"Are you saying," Ainsley managed, "that he, what, _faked_ his death?"

Gil looked up at Dani and Edrisa, waiting for them to crack, to smile and laugh at the insanity of that idea and explain what the hell was going on.

They didn't.

"Yes," Edrisa said, not looking at them. "And I helped."

"He ... faked ..." Gil couldn't finish the sentence. The world tilted sharply. Dani had his arm in seconds, easing him down onto a chair. All that blood. The brain matter. Bits of bone. Splattered on the walls.

His stillness. The lack of heartbeat.

Fake?

The cop in him kept listening as they explained. Heard the name of the poison Malcolm had willingly injected himself with, heard the measures Edrisa had taken, first to complete the fiction, then to bring Bright back from the brink. He listened to the prognosis, that Bright was in the ICU under close watch, not able to breathe on his own yet. Dimly registered they could see him in a few hours if they got him stable. How it was still an if. If his breathing returned, if there was no lasting brain damage, if he survived the next twenty-four hours, if, if, if.

The rest of him, however, was floating. Lost in an internal silence that expanded for miles like a pristinely still ocean. Nothing could touch him here. It's where he went the day Jackie got her diagnosis. He simply existed. Emotionless. Utterly separate.

It was Jessica that broke the spell. She shattered the quiet following Edrisa's words with a laugh that belonged to the insane. A deranged cackle that threw her head back before it fell forward into her hands.

"He faked his death," she chuckled, voice low and gravelly. "And didn't tell us. Of_ course_ he did. That _fucking_ – I can't believe –" She cut herself off with another alien giggle.

Ainsley's laughter joined hers. "Right? It's so – so _Malcolm!_ Why would he tell us? God forbid we _needed to know!"_

Jessica nodded, fresh tears stealing mascara. "All those risks he took in that stupid job – what was one more? Why wouldn't he think he could survive the _world's deadliest poison_ without side effects? Ha! Why didn't I think of this before? Why didn't – why –"

Her mirth choked on tears. She covered her face in her hands and didn't seem to breathe for a long moment. She just shook. Ainsley put a hand on her back, her own composure cracking as her mother fell apart. She turned into Ainsley, sobs heaving once more.

"I wish –" she gasped, clinging to her daughter like she was the very air she could barely breathe – "I wish I could still ground him!"

Ainsley laughed, the sound morphing into a sob in mid-air and Gil was on his feet before he meant to be. He ran a hand over his goatee, hesitating. They all looked at him. Waiting. Expecting.

He was out the door before anyone could speak. Down the hall, around the corner, into the stairwell. Down to the landing. Where the air vanished. His lungs heaved, searching for relief, but nothing came, nothing – there was _nothing –_

He was slumped in the corner before it returned. He gulped it in in drowning swallows, afraid it would desert him again. His vision slowly returned, fuzzy black spots dissipating. He closed his eyes. Forced himself to breathe in through his nose. Hold it. Out through the mouth.

Again.

He was shaking with tears before he could take another breath. Relief came in suffocating waves, trying vainly to soothe the wounds of the day. He hadn't lost him. Malcolm was alive. He was being treated. He could be okay. He could still be okay.

Gil blinked, not understanding the pain in his knuckles. He stared at the smear of blood on the wall beside him. The matching graze on his skin. Blinked again. Then he was punching for all he was worth, ramming both fists into the wall, twisting to his knees, denting the plaster, filling the white cracks with his own blood.

A firm hand on his shoulder stopped him. He jerked, looking up at Dani through blurry eyes. She sank down beside him, pulling his back against her chest, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He let his hands flop to his lap. Let the tension in his back ease.

Dani didn't say anything. Just let him breathe. It wasn't supposed to be this way around. He was her boss. Her mentor. He was supposed to take care of her, make sure she was alright, that she felt safe ... but it just wasn't in him. Not then. He let her hold him, wishing for Jackie. Wishing for Malcolm. Wishing today had never happened.

"He faked it," he mumbled eventually.

"I know."

"I ... I _held_ him."

"I know."  
"I thought ..."

"I know, Gil."

_"How could he?"_ Rage shook the syllables, and his fists.

Dani sighed against him. "I don't know, Gil. I've been thinking about it a lot. I think ... he doesn't know."

"Know what?" he almost spat.

"That we need him. That we'd miss him."

That brought him up short. His fury sputtered. Halted. Memories came in their wake, of landmines and hanging swords and EST machines. Of ribs cracked by a turnstile gate. Of a broken hand and dead eyes.

Suddenly the pattern didn't belong to the manic, stubborn side of the kid he almost lost. It wasn't an inability to wait for backup. It wasn't about saving victims.

At least, not all about that.

The other side of Malcolm, the side Gil always feared would resurface, reared behind his eyes. The side that had led him to hurt himself. The side that didn't eat, even when the medicines left him free to.

The side that had led Gil to a hospital room at three in the morning, where a weak, fragile Malcolm had lain, only hours after he had almost stopped his own heart.

Quantico hadn't trained it out of him. He hadn't outgrown it. It was still there, hiding in between smiles and sleepless nights. It had just changed its tactics. Convinced the kid it was noble as long as it served some wider purpose. Catch the killer. Save the next victim. No matter the costs.

"He should know," he said through gritted teeth. Another tear skipped over his lashes. "He should _know."_

"I know, Gil. I know. I just ... I get why he doesn't."

Gil slumped. He understood too. He just wished it wasn't true, wished it was something else, something a pill could fix, something _he_ could fix. Something his anger could blame because he was too damn relieved, too deeply _hurt _and _sorry_ to put any of this on Malcolm himself. The last words he'd said to him rang in his ears.

_It's just math, Gil. Just math. One life, to save four. I know you'll never be able to forgive me for this. And I'm sorry._

He had no doubt Malcolm believed that. And that was the problem.

Gil slowly unfisted his hands. His knuckles stung, burning dimly at the movement. He raised one hand and patted Dani's arm.

"Thanks, Dani. I'm sorry."

She shook her head against him. "Nothing to apologise for, Gil. You good?"

He nodded, squeezing her wrist.

"Let's go see our boy."


	7. Wait And Hope

They waited two hours without an update. The silence in the little room was a living thing, gross and bloated, oozing between them in a voiceless dare to be the one to break it, to give life to the fears slithering around their minds. If the kid was alright, they would've been told by now. But the waiting wore on.

JT opened the door, sidling in in an attempt to be unobtrusive. An effort effectively negated by his bulk. Gil straightened.

"Quinley?"

JT nodded. "Booked. Holbrook too."

"I want the best prosecutor in the state," Jessica muttered darkly. "I don't want them to see the sun ever again."

Ainsley put a hand on her mother's back as JT stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, clearing seeing where Bright got it from. Gil patted the seat beside him and JT took it.

"Any news on Bright?"

"Nothing." It hurt to say.

The silence skulked between them for another forty minutes before the door opened and a doctor stepped in. Gil rose to his feet with the rest but a low thrumming had settled in his ears. He heard the doctor speak, heard her say _coma_, but it didn't compute. He frowned, shifting his weight and forcing himself to _listen,_ to understand what was wrong with Bright.

His brain had been without oxygen for a significant period. They wouldn't know the extent of the damage until he woke up. That wasn't likely for some time. He couldn't breathe on his own. The next twenty hours were crucial. He'd be kept in the ICU. The strain the poison had put on his heart meant he was at risk of it failing. Maximum three visitors at a time. Family first.

Gil didn't notice the doctor leave. He watched Jessica and Ainsley move to the door and he shuffled backwards, trying to get his brain back online.

"Gil?"

Jessica waited, one hand on the door handle.

"What?"

"She said family first."

He blinked. Something in his chest twisted. Avoiding her gaze, he followed her out.

Bright was in a small room, made smaller by the banks of machines keeping him alive. His skin was grey, wan. Exhaustion etched lines in his face. A blue tube was taped to his mouth, forcing air into him with a level of calm that didn't fit the scene.

His kid couldn't breathe. Abruptly, neither could he.

The bullet wound was gone. Gore cleaned away so he looked whole. But all Gil could see was the blood. All he could feel was how limp he'd been in his arms. How heavy.

"My love," Jessica cooed, sweeping down to kiss his forehead. She rubbed the lipstick stain off his skin with her thumb, trailing her fingers through his hair. She hovered over him a moment, just taking him in. "I've never been so happy to see you, my darling." Her voice lowered. "And if you ever pull something like this again I promise you you'll wish you were dead. What I did to your TV will seem _delicate _by comparison."

Ainsley chuckled, pulling the other seat over to Malcolm's other side and taking his hand.

"Hey, big brother," she said softly, and Gil turned to the window, wishing he wasn't there. "You scared us. I'm glad you're okay. Doofus," she added, tone light despite the tears shaking it.

There was a crow perched on a wire outside. Pecking at its foot. Gil blinked the image clear. Swallowed his heart. Turned back to Malcolm.

He'd seen this before. The kid unconscious, hurt on the job. His family by his sides, each holding onto him.

How was this worse? There was no blood. No broken bones.

No one else to blame.

He moved to the end of the bed. Didn't know what to do with his hands. Decided to reach down and pat the kid's foot. Couldn't bring himself to speak.

oOo

Dani followed JT into Bright's room, holding Edrisa's hand. She hadn't stopped shaking, her fingers trembling in Dani's. They broke apart when they saw him.

"Damn," JT sighed. He stepped forward, hands in his pockets. "Hey, Bright. You look ... well you look like shit, dude."

"JT."

"What? He does."

Dani rolled her eyes. Sank into one of the empty seats. Hesitated. Then took his hand. He wasn't cold anymore. That was ... something.

Edrisa was shaking visibly now, dark eyes swimming with tears. JT shuffled closer, clearly unsure how to comfort her.

"It's not your fault, you know," he said quietly.

Edrisa shook her head. "I did this. I let him. I'm complicit. I – I could've stopped him and I didn't, this is my fault, this –"

"Edrisa." Dani waited until she had her gaze. "You couldn't've stopped him. No one can stop Bright when he gets a plan in his head. We all know it. He would've done this with or without you. And you heard what the doctor said. If he'd gone any longer without oxygen he'd be braindead." She had to swallow to keep her voice steady. "You saved his life."

"This isn't on you," JT echoed softly. "He owes you his life."

Edrisa took a shaky breath, nodding jerkily. Tears darted down her cheeks.

"I just," she said, "I just really want him to be okay."

Dani looked back to Bright's face. This was the calmest she'd seen him since she punched his lights out. She almost smiled at the memory. At least he was finally getting some sleep. She tried to find that comforting.

"He will be," she said quietly. "He's tougher than all of us."

She looked down to his hand in hers. Traced her fingertips over his knuckles. Stroked his nails.

"He even looks stubborn unconscious," JT said, leaning over him. "No way he's gonna kick it. Way too headstrong to let some random guy beat him."

"Yeah. Yeah, he – he's al-always –" Dani stopped. Blinked hard. Forced herself to breathe. "He survived Watkins. This is no big deal."

She ran her fingertips over his thumb. The one he broke to escape Watkins and save his family.

He'd saved her. The first night they met. Was ready to give himself up to save a stranger. And now he was lying here, unable to breathe for himself, because he'd put their lives above his own again. He'd done this to save her. She glanced up to JT's arm, still strapped across his chest. To save _them_.

How do you repay something like that?

oOo

The ventilator rattled rhythmically. Malcolm's chest rose gently. The machines whirred. His chest fell. The city was quiet outside the window, flanked in cocooning darkness, the unending chaos of the hospital quenched by the closed door.

Gil could finally breathe again. Anxiety still clung to his lungs but he no longer felt like he was suffocating. The image of Malcolm's bloodstained face had eased enough for him to soothe himself with the reality of the steady heartbeat beeping over his shoulder. A much-needed sleep hadn't hurt, but he could've done without the nightmare.

Best of all, their twenty hours were almost up. Nothing had gone wrong. Bright still wasn't breathing on his own, but his vitals were getting slowly stronger. Hope had settled like a cat on Gil's heart, warming itself in the glow of a future safe from the horror of fresh grief.

He should've known. Jackie had never let him down, not when it mattered. She'd kept their boy safe.

Jessica sat across from him, Bright's hand in hers. She'd finally stopped fussing over him but Gil knew it was a product of exhaustion, not satisfaction. She still hadn't slept, save a few stolen minutes in the chair. Ainsley had gone to get her some decent food, but apart from letting the team have a turn with Bright while she hunted down some coffee, Jessica refused to leave Malcolm. Gil didn't blame her in the slightest. Every time he left this room his heart would clench and shudder, trapped by the memory of Malcolm's lifelessness against his chest.

Jessica snorted softly. He looked up to her, eyebrows raised. She shook her head.

"I'm just thinking about that infernal bird in his apartment."

"Sunshine?"

"Mm. I couldn't understand why he chose a parakeet of all things. What's wrong with a cat? Or a plant for that matter, far less work."

Gil chuckled. "The kid's got a big heart."

"Oh I don't deny that. But a _bird?"_

Gil smiled at Bright. It faded quickly. He still didn't look like himself. Too still.

"Of course, I know why he chose the name, though. Doubt he knows I know, but, I do."

Gil shot her a questioning glance and she shrugged delicately.

"Jackie."

He blinked. "What?"

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Come on, Gil, you remember. Jackie used to sing to him when he was little, that godawful song that was in that car commercial for months." Her tone lost its levity as her gaze returned to her son. "I always hated her for that," she said quietly, almost to herself. "For being a better mother to him than I was. Finding a way to comfort him through his horrors when all I did was drink and make it worse."

"Jessica ..."

"You both helped raise him. And I'm grateful for that. You know," she added, forcing her voice to sound light and inconsequential, "I used to watch him so closely. Waiting for him to come home with a dead bird or to torture one of his snakes. When his friends all abandoned him I was ready for him to turn violent. To ... to turn into his father."

Gil barely dared breathe. He looked to Malcolm, remembering the little kid who'd been so inquisitive, so shy, so terrified of taking up space. He'd never once feared he'd end up like Martin. But God, how could Jessica not?

"I don't know how he would've turned out without you, Gil," she said softly, still staring at Malcolm's lax features. "I think ... I would've only broken him more. Without you. Without Jackie. You didn't just save him. You saved me. Gave me something healthy to be angry about. To strive for. Reminded me I was his mother. For better or worse.

"But I never sang to him."

She reached forward, curling her fingers through Malcolm's hair, her gaze so soft and full of affection and sorrow Gil felt like an intruder just witnessing it.

"Well," Jessica whispered, "I suppose it's never too late to start."

She took his hand, still stroking his hair, still watching him like he was the most important thing in her world.

_"You are my sun-shine,"_ she sang softly, sincerity dripping from every syllable. _"My only sun-shine. You make me ha-ppy, when skies are grey."_ Tears filled her eyes, quickly escaping her lashes. _"You'll never know, dear,"_ she whispered, barely singing now, _"how much I love you."_ She sniffed, took a breath. Kissed her son's cheek. _"Please don't take my sun-shine away."_

Gil rose to his feet and walked around the bed. He bent down and wrapped his arms around Jessica. She turned into him, trembling slightly.

"Malcolm loves you, Jessica," he whispered. "You did your best. And it was enough. You raised a hero, Jess. A hero."

"I just want him _safe,"_ she sighed, voice low. "I want him to not hurt. I want him _happy._" She sniffed, voice breaking. "I want him _back." _She pulled back, squeezing his arm. "But it's like he said at that wedding. All we can do is wait. And hope."

Gil sighed. Glanced up at Malcolm. And froze.

His eyes were open.


	8. Tetrodotoxin

The sting of the needle bit into his elbow. He could feel the poison steal through him, cold and cloying. It worked quickly. His thoughts slowed, suddenly heavy. His limbs took longer to respond. It was like being held, shackled by every muscle so every movement was lethargic, weighted, dragging. But he did what he had to do. Told Gil goodbye, in case this didn't work.

He meant to thank Edrisa again, but his lips stopped working around her name. She caught his head as his body gave out. She asked him not to die and he tried to smile, unsure if he managed it. Then what resolve he had faded in a wave of alien fatigue. His eyes slid closed and, with a sigh, what control he had of his body slipped away.

Edrisa set him down so gently he barely felt it. There was a pressure in his chest, a compressing weight that burned in his lungs and shivered through his heart. He should be fighting for every breath, battling the poison with every heartbeat, but he just lay there, completely helpless as it took over. His lungs expanded with delicate subtly that did nothing to ease the fire coiling through them. He couldn't feel his heart beating when moments ago it had been a jackhammer in his chest.

For the first time, he truly understood that he may not survive this. He could barely breathe. He looked dead. Only one person knew what he'd taken, and the plan meant she wouldn't be able to intervene for hours. And what if the team didn't catch Quinley? What if Quinley didn't care about his terms, what if he went after his family anyway?

What if Malcolm had just rendered himself utterly useless while the people he loved were in danger?

He couldn't supress the fleeting wish that, if that was true, he didn't want to wake up again.

Warm liquid oozed against his temple. If he'd been capable of starting he would have. The blood was colder than he'd expected. It stuck to his skin jealously, clawing through his hair like molasses. More matted the other side of his head and he could feel the clumps of brain and bone Edrisa had added. He couldn't quite appreciate her thoroughness right then. His stomach churned.

Panic coiled in every muscle, every vein. He should be hyperventilating, heart should be racing, but his body couldn't react to it. Even his mind was sluggish, caught in a haze of wrongness, of needing to move and being unable to so much as blink. He was trapped, deep within himself. And it was his fault.

"I really hope this works," Edrisa whispered above him and he added a silent plea of his own.

He wasn't ready for the gunshot. It was so loud, disorienting, ringing through his head.

But he still heard Gil. Calling him Malcolm. In a voice more broken than he'd ever heard before.

Edrisa manipulated his hand, pressing his fingers against the gun, aimed for his head. Her movements were hurried, flustered. A droplet of warmth burst on his cheek. She wiped it away, leaving her hand there a moment and Malcolm would never be able to tell her how grateful he was for that. A final moment of companionship. Of hope. Of someone knowing he was still in there.

_"__Please don't die, Malcolm."_

She'd never called him that before. Before he was ready, her hand was gone. Her footsteps soon followed.

He waited in the crushing, burning blackness, hoping for a miracle. Hoping Gil wouldn't have to see this. Knowing there'd be no coming back from it. No matter what Jackie had believed.

A door clicked shut. Gil's footsteps stumbled closer. They stopped with a scuff. There was a thud. Ragged, suffocating breaths. A familiar voice twisted in agony that swept through the air and burrowed into Malcolm's heart, curling in on itself and festering in guilt.

"No, no, no," Gil was mumbling, barely walking by the sounds of it. "No, no, kid, my kid, no, please, no."

His breathing sounded as painful as Malcolm's stillness. Two trembling fingers pressed into his neck. Malcolm waited for the traitorous pulse to beat against the pressure, but it didn't come. The fingers withdrew before his heart quivered again.

Something inhuman clawed its way out of Gil's throat. It tore into Malcolm, wrenching unwanted memories into painful clarity, of Gil trying not to sob on the phone after Jackie died, of a victim he saved in the FBI finding the child he couldn't. It was the sound his heart made the day he called the cops on his own father.

It was the sound of true grief. Of loss so deep it broke you as it left. The kind of wound that never healed, only grew familiar.

Malcolm fought the weight keeping him still, fought the blackness curling at the edges of his thoughts. He should have been thrashing, growling and grunting with the effort as everything in him worked to undo what he had done, to open his eyes and beg Gil for forgiveness for ever forcing him to make a sound like that. He wanted to go back.

But he could barely breathe. And he lay still.

Shaking arms curled under his neck, around his ribs. Blood dripped from his undamaged temples and then a chest was pressed against his, his head nestled under a familiar goatee. He could feel Gil's heart hammer against his shirt, feel the desperation in his fingers as he clutched him with crushing strength. What little air he could muster faded and his awareness flickered.

Gil's tears fell onto his cheeks. His sobs shook them both and Malcolm wished he could cry too, could relieve the fresh ache in his chest. Could take back what he'd done.

Malcolm didn't hear the footsteps coming. It was getting harder to stay present, to cling to this shadow of consciousness. But he heard Dani's voice, the steadiest thing in his world, shake. Felt her hand curl around his when Gil laid him gently down. Heard JT's quiet shock. Felt Gil's fingers pass rhythmically through his hair.

Their words refused to make sense. Lack of oxygen was taking its toll. He heard his name though. A few broken syllables here and there. Felt the warm gentleness as Gil smoothed his brow, whispering an apology he should never have had to give.

This was his fault. Even if he survived, there was no coming back from this. The full cruelty of his choice was choking him, silently, secretly, guilt hissing and coiling like snakes in his gut. It obliterated his tenuous grasp on the world. Blackened his thoughts. The certainty of his actions, his faith in his own intellect, wavered. For the first time, the means eclipsed the ends.

He didn't know how long they held him. Spoke to him. He couldn't understand it all. Every second increased the weight in his chest, made it harder and harder to breathe, to stay with them. But he clung to their voices with everything he had. If he was to die, let it be later. Let the autopsy show he struggled. Fought to stay with them.

He came back to his body as someone lifted him. Something slick passed under his legs. He didn't understand what was happening until he felt the material tighten around him. Fear jolted in his chest and for a moment he was sure he moved it was so strong.

_The body bag._

The room came back to him, his mind straining to put the world together again. Hands shuffled him into position. The zip snarled as it was pulled. He was going to be locked in the darkness. Alone. Confined. Just like she was. He was – he was going to – they were – he couldn't breathe. He couldn't breathe. The zip inched higher, sealing him inside something he couldn't get himself out of.

It stopped. Gil's voice rumbled through the air. His breathing was loud, shuddering, and Malcolm latched on to it, desperate not to be left alone in the dark. A hand settled on his forehead, almost steady. Malcolm focused on the contact, the last breath of warmth he would know before he was sealed in the bag. He rallied his flagging strength, willed himself to open his eyes, to take a real breath, to do anything to show them he was in here, he was alive, that _he didn't want to be alone in the dark._

_Please Gil,_ he thought with all his waning might, _please, please. See me. I'm here. Please._

But the hand pulled away. And the zip crept up his chest, his neck, over his face –

The world muffled. What little impressions he had of it vanished. Cold plastic pressed against his nose, his forehead. Hugging his arms.

His terror turned to ice. Spreading through him inexorably. He was alone. Trapped.

Had it been like this for her? Had she screamed at her body to obey her? Had that moment when he'd opened the trunk been a blessing or a curse? He couldn't remember her face. Had she looked at him? Had she known he was there at all? Had she begged him as he had just begged Gil, to save her? Spare her?

But it was no comparison. She had been an innocent woman. Taken. He had done this to himself. He may deserve her pain but he would never deserve her sympathy. He never would.

Motion jostled him. Time skipped and sped, slipping away from him without pausing to make sense. He was just aware enough to feel relief when the bag was zipped off him. Hands manipulated him, settling him into place, taking his jacket. They were so warm.

People were speaking. He knew some of the voices but he couldn't place them. He could hardly think. What little air he had was so faint, so laughably inadequate, he wasn't really there. The searing burn in his lungs had changed, mutated into something he was sure was fatal, but it was distant. Separate.

He wondered if this is what dying felt like.

Heat blazed against his cheek but it was so far away. There was something else with it, something hard and cool and an odd pressure brushed passed his lips, through his nostrils.

His chest rose.

The relief was so profound, so blissfully sweet, he lost his grip on himself. More air pushed its way into his lungs and pain tingled along his veins, through his mind as oxygen finally returned. The world came back to him.

He was lying on something cold and hard. The heat on his cheek was a hand, the thumb stroking his cheekbone and the touch was so welcome, so comforting he felt the burn of tears he couldn't shed.

A needle stung his arm.

_Edrisa,_ he realised. She had him. They'd made it somewhere safe._ Thank you, Edrisa._

Dani's voice floated above him and his heart swelled. He wasn't alone. His team was here.

Maybe he wouldn't die after all.

Someone ripped his shirt open. Cold plastic stuck itself to his chest. A whining note pierced the air. They were speaking – he heard JT's baritone lilt with sarcasm – or was it fear? He couldn't bring himself to understand the words, his head still pounding as its starvation slowly ended.

More injections. Nothing happened.

The plastic on his face vanished and with it, the air. He forced himself to concentrate, to figure out what the hell was happening. The burn returned too quickly, choking him.

Gloved fingers touched his jaw. Eased it down. Icy metal slipped past his tongue and if he had any control over his body he would've gagged and bucked, jerked away, done anything to stop that _thing_ slip down his throat, forcing its way deeper, spreading its freezing taint. Something warmer, something sharper followed it. It was smaller, less intrusive, and as it settled into the place the metal was pulled free, clicking on his teeth. Nothingness winked through him. The plastic thing jerked. He felt himself fading, slipping, falling.

A gale blew itself down the tube and into his lungs and for the first time in however long this hell had lasted _he could breathe._ The machine exhaled for him, then pushed in another blissful breath. He quickly forgot the wrongness of the equipment in his mouth, no longer caring if it meant he could feel his own chest rise and fall in a steady, lifegiving rhythm.

The monotonous tone he'd almost forgotten about missed a beat. Somewhere, he knew that was good.

He didn't have time to enjoy not dying. His body came back to him in a wave of acute stings, muscles ripping themselves one way and another, completely independent of his silent pleas. Convulsions gripped him and his mind faltered. He was vaguely aware of hands on him, holding his head, pinning his legs. But the touch faded to a distant tingle, like when Ainsley would hold her hand right in front of his nose and boast how he couldn't be angry because she wasn't touching him.

_Ainsley. Mom._

He wanted to fight for them. For Gil. For Dani and Edrisa and JT. He had promises to keep. He had to get home and feed Sunshine.

But he had nothing to hold onto anymore. No energy left to fight. He was going to die.

He knew it wasn't real. But only when the hallucinations changed. When they skipped from his loft to the precinct to his mother's dining room with a warping he only recognised because of the Girl. But that knowledge only lasted moments. He would sink back into the lies, the truths, and be lost.

His mother disowned him. Told him he was no longer welcome in her home.

Ainsley screamed at him, crying and furious that he had broken his promise.

JT didn't acknowledge him, turning away with a finality that stung.

Edrisa was taken away in handcuffs, yelling for him to do something, to save her too.

Dani stepped away from him, shaking her head. Whispering that she could never trust him again.

And Gil. Gil's eyes changed. Looked at him with a flat, dispassionate wariness that struck like a punch. Told him he was wrong, that Jackie was wrong. That there are some things too cruel to forgive.

He lost them. Over and over. Saw them die. Over and Over.

And he deserved it.

He was warm. His throat was dry, rough. Something was stuck there. But his chest didn't hurt like before. The pain had changed from a burn to an ache, one he knew was familiar but couldn't remember why.

Movement caught his attention. Someone was stroking the back of his hand. Speech murmured over him. He tried to concentrate, pull himself out of the quagmire he'd been stuck in for hours. Or weeks. He focused on the gentle pull of someone's skin on his, letting it lull him into wakefulness. The voices sharpened. His mother. Gil.

They hadn't left him.

It took a long time for the words to make sense. When they did, they hurt.

"You know," his mother said, just feet from him. "I used to watch him so closely. Waiting for him to come home with a dead bird or to torture one of his snakes. When his friends all abandoned him I was ready for him to turn violent. To ... to turn into his father."

His heart broke along the oldest scars. She said it so casually, like it was obvious. Like the biggest surprise of her motherhood was not raising a monster like the one she'd married.

Well. He couldn't blame her.

"I don't know how he would've turned out without you, Gil. I think ... I would've only broken him more."

An old ache surged in his chest and he fought to open his eyes, to speak around the tube in his mouth. But he could barely keep up with her words.

_You didn't break me,_ he wanted to tell her. _You were so hurt and you did your best._

"But I never sang to him."

_I love you, Momma._

Fingers wove through his hair and for the first time he realised the blood was gone. He wanted to lean into the contact, have it last forever.

"Well," Jessica whispered, "I suppose it's never too late to start."

Her nails tickled along his scalp and he remembered countless nights falling asleep to that steady rhythm, wrists locked at his side, her weight dipping the mattress.

_"__You are my sun-shine,"_ she sang softly, her voice low and lilting and the best thing he'd ever heard. Malcolm's heart faltered, remembering another voice sing those same words. He remembered warm hugs and baking lessons, kind smiles and an untouchable sense of _safety._

_"__My only sun-shine."_

She had known. All these years she had known about that song. She had _known._ As much as he loved Jackie, as important and cherished as she would always be in his memory, _his mother _meant to him what no one else could. She stood by him through every childhood nightmare, every doctor's appointment. She fought for him when he was too exhausted to advocate for himself. She had egged him on until he'd finally found medications that let him function. She'd never understood his need to join the FBI but she had supported him, in her own way. She was steadfast. She had held him up when his strength failed him after Watkins took him. She'd been there, in the hospital, every day. There was nothing she wouldn't do for him and he would ride this surge of love back to her side if it killed him.

_"__You make me ha-ppy, when skies are grey."_

Tears quavered through the words and Malcolm threw himself into his struggle, willing himself with all he had to _wake up_, to tell her how much he loved her, how sorry he was, how beautiful she sounded.

_"__You'll never know, dear,"_ she whispered above him, barely singing now, _"how much I love you."_ She sniffed, took a breath. Her lips pressed against his cheek.

_"__Please don't take my sun-shine away."_

_I'm here. Momma, I'm here._

Movement stirred around him. His mother's hands vanished. He ached for her touch as soon as it was gone.

"Malcolm loves you, Jessica," Gil whispered. "You did your best. And it was enough. You raised a hero, Jess. A hero."

_Not that,_ Malcolm thought, still trying to wrench himself to the surface. _Never that, Gil._

"I just want him _safe,"_ his mother sighed. "I want him to not hurt. I want him _happy._" Her voice broke. "I want him _back."_

_I won't leave you. I promised._

_I promised._

Their voices faded as he clawed his way out of the darkness, out of the hanging weight he'd been floating in. His body came back to him in a jolt of lethargic pain. Everything intensified, the beeping of a monitor, the scent of antiseptic, the raw dryness of his throat, the coarse intrusion of the breathing tube.

It all hurt. But he ignored it. Blinked his eyes open a crack, then quickly shut them as light blinded him, stabbing into his brain. He tried again, more slowly, willing himself not to fight the artificial breathing. Not sure if he was able to breathe without it.

His mother sat in a chair to his right, Gil hunched over her, arms wrapped around her. He met his gaze. Tried to smile. Couldn't.

Gil blinked at him, his expression a study of shock.

"J-Jess," he muttered, straightening. "Look."

Malcolm looked to his mother in time to see her gasp and reach for him, tears spilling over her lashes. Her hands were on his face in moments and he closed his eyes, relishing her touch. Gil was half-laughing, his hand on Malcolm's shoulder.

Malcolm reached a hand to the tube in his mouth but Jessica caught it.

"No, my love, don't touch that."

He frowned. His lungs were rejecting the mechanical rhythm. He felt ... okay. Strong enough to breathe on his own. He wanted it gone.

"I'll get a doctor," Gil said, disappearing too quickly for Malcolm's addled brain to follow. He looked back to his mother, tried to poor all his sorrow and gratitude into his gaze.

"I know, darling. I know. I'm here. You're okay. Everything's okay."

Everything? Did they have Quinley? His accomplices? Was everyone safe? Was he?

Nurses came in a bustle of movement and orders he couldn't keep up with. They ignored his weak attempts to push them away. Said things that were meant to be comforting but were strangled by business-like tones. Gloved hands gripped his chin and he tensed. His hand was clenched around his mother's, shaking. The tube was pulled out in a slow, steady motion and he wanted to _scream_ as it scraped along his raw throat but all he could do was gag.

Weakness took him. He slumped, needing hands to hold him steady as an oxygen mask appeared over his mouth and nose. Someone asked him if he was in pain and he nodded before he'd understood the question. Something cool flushed into his arm and panic beeped into the room. The nothingness was coming for him again but he fought it. He needed to tell them, needed to say it.

He searched for them, barely able to keep his eyes open. They were by his side, their hands on him, soothing.

They still cared. At least for now.

He reached for Gil. His hands were so steady around his trembling one. His lids drooped and he blinked them open.

"Gil," he mumbled, slurring. He winced as his tattered throat worked.

"I'm here, kid. I'm right here."

"Mom."

"I'm here my love. My darling, I'm right here."

He closed his eyes. Took a steadying breath. Opened them again. Found his mother's, then Gil's.

"I'm sorry," he croaked, unsure if it was intelligible. Someone may have said something else but he was already sinking down, far away, into blackness.

* * *

Your reviews are wonderful, readers, thank you so much! Prolly just one chapter to go now.


	9. Nothing You Could Do

"I just don't know why you won't stay just a few more days," Jessica half-sighed, half-growled, flitting about him as he stuffed his sweater into his bag. "It's one thing to discharge yourself AMA after a snake bite –"

Malcolm's head shot up. "How do you know about –"

Jessica waved a hand. "Please, dear, we had _hours_ to wait and I know how to work your sister."

"Hey!" Ainsley looked up from her phone and pouted. Malcolm narrowed his eyes at her.

"Traitor."

She shrugged, grinning. "Next time don't slip into a coma and I won't out you to our mother."

Malcolm snorted, hiding the twinge of discomfort behind a smile. "Fair."

"I'm _serious_, Malcolm," Jessica pressed on, "the doctors said there could be some lasting effects – some respiratory issues and –"

Malcolm turned and took her hands in his. "Mother. Please listen to me." He waited until she nodded for him to continue. _"I am fine_. Completely. Totally. No issues. I'm breathing fine. And I just want to get out of here."

She squeezed his hands, then raised one to his cheek.

"And I need you to understand," she said, voice low, gaze aching, "that we almost lost you. Again. I ... I thought we had. So I need you to be fine, Malcolm. I need you alive."

Malcolm blinked away his guilt and smiled. "You have me, mother. You have me."

She looked at him for a long moment, the shadow of what he'd done to her still shifting in her eyes. She pulled him into a hug and he wrapped his arms around her, resting his head on her shoulder. Ainsley's arms encircled them both and Jessica chuckled.

"Why is it we only every do this after one of us almost dies?"

Ainsley shrugged against him. "We have standards of drama to uphold. Can't possibly do things as normal as _hugging_ for no reason."

Malcolm chuckled, privately wishing they would do this more often. It was ... comforting. The only hugs he really remembered as a kid were from Martin, before the arrest. After that, hugs just weren't as enjoyable. They were tainted. Gil's hand on his neck became his harbour. But this ... this made him feel whole.

Before they could break away, Malcolm took a breath and forced the words out.

"I'm sorry for what I put you through. I know it was inexcusable. And I'm sorry I didn't warn you."

Jessica pulled away, making that disapproving little hum he knew so well. His heart sank at her expression. Ainsley rubbed his shoulder.

"Trusting some corpse doctor over your own family is a hard pill to swallow. But," she sighed, eyes darting skyward, smile hitching on her lips, "I can't say I don't understand it. I don't agree with it, and if you ever do that to me again I _will_ disown you and donate your inheritance to the Brooklyn Academy of Dance. But I understand what drives you, Malcolm." Her fingers trailed his cheek again and the shadow in her eyes shifted. "I know I can't change that. I may even," she relented, dropping her hand and shrugging, pulling a face, "respect it." She gave a dramatic shiver.

"Well I think you're a moron and a jackass," Ainsley said conversationally. "But you kept your promise so I can't be mad."

The casualness of her tone hit him like a blow. His promise. God, he'd forgotten about that. She had thought he broke it. Somehow, his heart burrowed lower.

"I'm sorry, Ains," he said quietly, reaching to squeeze her hand.

She shrugged, still smiling like it was nothing, but he could read the tension in her expression, the barely-there dip in the corner of her mouth.

"Just ... next time ... don't," she muttered, not looking at him. He pulled her into a hug, holding her tight and wishing again he could undo it all. His baby sister. What had he put her through?

Some big brother he was.

"By the way," Jessica said as they broke apart, both with shining eyes. "I've decided how you can make all this unpleasantness up to me."

"Oh?" he said warily.

"Yes! Friday night dinners, seven o'clock, every week."

Malcolm's stomach joined his heart on the floor. "For ... for how long?"

She beamed at him as she passed, patting his cheek. "Until I forget how it felt to think my son was dead."

She clacked to the door, waving them a goodbye. "I'll have Adolpho pick you both up tomorrow for the inaugural feast!"

"Both?" Ainsley called after her. _"Both?!"_

Jessica just laughed, then disappeared into the corridor.

Malcolm bit his lip, looking at Ainsley through worried eyebrows. "Sor –"

"Why is it that every time you do something needlessly dramatic, _I_ suffer too?"

He shrugged. "Family?"

Ainsley rolled her eyes. "Well you owe me. I am _not_ carrying you through infinity dinners with small talk about on-set scuttlebutt."

She bumped her cheek against his, making a kissing noise, then grabbed her handbag.

"I love you," she clarified, as she headed for the door, "just not that much."

Malcolm laughed and zipped up his duffel. "Love you too, Ains."

She flashed him a cheeky grin before rounding the corner.

With a sigh, Malcolm heaved his bag over his shoulder. His throat was dry and sore, and despite all the reassurances he'd been spouting all day his chest still hurt. If he wasn't careful, his breaths wheezed audibly, and he could still feel that awful tightness in his lungs.

But that didn't matter. He had work to do.

* * *

Malcolm knocked lightly on the office door. Edrisa jumped at her desk, pen flying out of her hand. She watched it fall, then looked back to him and broke into that wide, genuine smile he could never really believe was just for him.

"Bright! You're out! I mean, out of hospital, not _out,_ although, are you? Wait, no, don't answer that."

He grinned and stepped into her office. "Hey Edrisa. I, um, do you have a minute?"

"Yes!" she said quickly, enthusiasm radiating from her. "I'm sorry I don't have another seat – do you want mine?"

He chuckled, raising his free hand. "I'm fine standing. I just wanted to, uh, I needed to thank you. For everything you did for me. I got you this."

He held the book out and she took it, blushing furiously. Unwrapped it with subtly frantic fingers. Her little gasp as she saw the cover turned Malcolm's smile real for a few seconds.

"You're kidding me," she breathed, picking the tome up as though it were made of spun glass. _"A Complete History of Embalming: From Chinchorro to Egyptians to Modern Day,_" she read, voice squeaking with excitement. "With a foreword adapted from the works of John Hunter! How did you – this thing is _expensive,_ Bright I can't take this! Oh but I _really_ wanna take this oh my god _look at it!"_

The first genuine laugh Malcolm could remember since before this case bubbled past his lips. "I insist you take it. It's the least I could do after all you did for me."

Edrisa waved a hand, still gazing loving at the cover. "It was just a little fake blood."

Malcolm shook his head, all levity draining from him. "No, Edrisa."

She looked up at him, surprised by his tone.

"You took a huge risk helping me. You could've lost your job. Gone to jail."

She snorted. "And you could've _died."_

"I almost did," he said quietly, not quite able to look at her. "I could ... feel it."

"Bright," she breathed, horrified.

"But you saved me," he said, voice stronger now and he raised his head to meet her gaze. "If you hadn't intubated me when you did I would've died. I know it. A book is pretty pathetic thanks for that, but, it's the best I could do until I think of something better." He stepped forward, pouring sincerity into his voice. _"Thank you,_ Edrisa. For saving me. For helping me. For ... for being my friend."

She sat there, frozen save for the tears shimming in her eyes, for a long moment. Then she bounced to her feet and had her arms around him before he could register she'd moved. He blinked for a second, part of him wanting to squirm away, but put his arms around her.

_"I'm so glad you didn't die,"_ she whispered, voice heavy with tears. "I was so scared."

"I'm so sorry," he whispered back, holding her tighter. "I shouldn't have put you in that position."

"Just ..." She didn't finish her thought, only squeezed him to her. She was far stronger than he'd thought. He held her, pretending not to feel her quiet shaking, until her breathing eased and she pulled back, sniffing.

"Do you want a coffee?"

He smiled down at her. "Love one."

* * *

He found Dani at her desk. Placed the cup of earl grey gingerly down in front of her.

"Peace offering?"

She looked up at him, trying not to smile. With a small nod, she took the cup and then a sip. Tension eased from her features.

"How you doing?" she asked, those dark eyes unfathomable in their patience. The idea she still cared, after the last few days ... he'd felt her tears on his skin.

"I'm fine," he lied brightly. "No side effects. How, um ... how are you?"

Her eyes dropped to the cup. She took another sip.

"Yeah," Malcolm said sadly, shifting his weight. "I guess I lost the right to ask that, huh?"

"You think?" she asked, looking up at him. Her tone surprised him. It wasn't sarcastic, but genuine. Curious.

"Am I wrong?"

Dani smiled, set the cup down and got to her feet. She put both hands on his shoulders, forcing him to meet her serious, quietly amused gaze.

"Bright. You are the _dumbest_ smart person I've ever met."

The tenderness in her tone made heat rise to his cheeks.

"Um ... thank you?"

She squeezed his shoulder, shaking it gently as she let go. "You're welcome. Now, come on. There's something you should see."

She led him to the observation chamber of one of the interrogation rooms. JT sat with his back to them, leaning over the table and pointing a hostile finger at Quinley. The latter's expression was stoic, one arm folded across his chest, head tilted away from JT and the mirror. Malcolm's breath caught.

_So this was him. They had him. It was really over._

"He hasn't given us anything," Dani said quietly beside him.

Malcolm smiled. Dani frowned at him.

"That good news in your world?"

Malcolm's smile grew. "Well ... there's something I didn't tell you."

Dani rolled her eyes. "Shocker. What now?"

"The, eh, the reason I ..." His smile fell from his lips, dragged down by his sinking heart. "The reason I went through with the tetrodotoxin was because Quinley got in touch with me."

The back of Dani's hand slapped into his arm and he flinched, yelping.

"And you didn't tell us? Jesus, Bright, what are we to you?"

He frowned at her. Kept going before that question could silence him.

"He told me he had eyes on my mother. From what Gil said he was disguised as a pap. But he was able to describe what she was wearing, what she was doing. Said he had others watching Ainsley, Gil, JT. You."

He couldn't bring himself to lift his gaze from his shoes. Beside him, her posture relaxed.

"I know he might've been lying," he continued. "But I couldn't take the risk. Not with everything he said. But," he added, heaving his chin up to look at Quinley through the glass, "he did make a mistake. Told me details about –" he needed a fresh breath to say their names – "Andi and Spencer. Things only the killer would know. If I testify, a jury will have to convict. It was a confession. I can use that."

"You – you're not going in there," Dani said, her tone suggesting he was insane.

He grinned at her. "You can't stop me." He ducked out the door before she could grab him.

One quick, bracing breath, and he strode into the interrogation room. JT jumped, his glare a physical heat boring into Malcolm's cheek but he had eyes only for Quinley. The air of smug invincibility evaporated around him in an almost visible haze of encroaching doom. Malcolm's smile came easily and he settled into that other self, that calm truth that lived inside him, that let him talk to those he feared most without feeling his heart pound through him.

"You – you're dead!" Quinley gasped, trying to stand up but caught by his wrist cuffed to the bar on the table.

Malcolm's grin widened and he put his hands to his chest, looking down at himself.

"Really? I don't think it took."

He watched comprehension dawn slowly on Quinley's face as whatever protection Malcolm's death had afforded him slipped away.

"I think it's time we had a talk, Jason, don't you?"

Beside him, JT leaned back in his chair, arms folded, smugness radiating off him.

"I've got nothing to say to you."

"No?" Malcolm shrugged. "Well that's okay. I can just talk to my friend Detective Tarmel here." He turned to JT, adopting an expression of mock confusion. "Tell me Detective, what dos Penal Code two-forty-point-thirty state?"

"Funny you should ask," JT said cheerfully. "It defines aggravated harassment as a wilful threat to kill or injure a person with sufficient specificity that they are in sustained fear for their life. Or the life of their family."

"Huh," Malcolm said, straightening up and putting a finger to his chin. "Sounds like the kind of charge you can't prosecute without the threatened party."

"It's sure hard to," JT confirmed, nodding sagely.

"But since we _do_ have said party," he went on, "what does that do our friend here's prospects?"

JT could barely contain his grin. "Well, they were looking good before but now, _damn,_ they're just about beautiful. Ya see, add the aggravated harassment charges on top of the concealing of a deadly weapon, _plus_ threatening officers of the NYPD, well, let's just say I wouldn't want this to go to trial if I were you."

"Don't forget two counts of murder one," Malcolm added.

_"Alleged!"_ Quinley snapped. "You have no proof."

"Oh I was hoping you'd say that." Malcolm dug in his pocket for his phone and tapped into recordings. "Did you know you only need one-party consent for a recording to be admissible in a court of law?"

Quinley eyed the phone warily. Malcolm tapped PLAY.

_"You can't pull this off," _Malcolm's voice buzzed from the phone, tension making the syllables stark and clipped. JT shifted in his seat, frowning from Malcolm to the phone.

_"Sure I can,"_ came Quinley's voice, velvet with confidence. _"I've got friends in strategic places. You think those photos I sent were hard to get? All I have to do is say the word."_

_ "Be careful. Killing someone isn't as easy as threatening."_

Quinley's laugh shook out from the phone.

_"You think this is my first rodeo? Who do you think killed those bodies your team dug up three days ago? I did that, Whitly. And I'll do so much worse to your little family. Your precious team. Unless ..."_

_ "Unless I give myself up. Unless I die."_ Malcolm suppressed a shiver at the sound of his own voice. He remembered the sinking knowledge that he was trapped. Outsmarted. That his life had to end, after so many years struggling to keep a tenuous hold on it.

_"Exactly,"_ Quinley's voice purred. _"But I'm not unreasonable. I don't need to do it. You kill yourself, and I won't go after your friends. Or your family. You can save them, hero. If you're man enough._

_ "You have twenty-four hours."_

The line clicked dead a heartbeat before the recording stopped, the last sound Malcolm's whispered curse.

Malcolm locked his phone and returned it to his pocket with a flourish, keeping all trace of the twin snakes coiling and hissing in his gut off his face.

"I think that counts as a confession, don't you Detective?"

JT got to his feet. "I think that'll do nicely, Bright." He smirked down at Quinley. "But you let me know if there's anything you wanna add."

"You killed my brother," Quinley hissed through clenched teeth, staring daggers of hatred into Malcolm.

"No, Jason," he said softly. "Your brother died in a random assault in a prison he belonged to be in because of his actions. Blaming me is a defence mechanism so you don't have to confront your guilt over your little brother going off the rails. It's a way to keep the grief at bay. And I understand that. But it's over now." He turned to leave.

_"You can't just walk away from me!"_ Quinley howled after him. _"You took everything from me! You –"_

JT closed the door on his rage. Raised his eyebrows at Malcolm.

"And I thought you were intense."

Malcolm grinned. "Oh, I am." His joke soured on his tongue and he dropped his gaze.

"You good, dude?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm just ..." He forced himself to meet JT's deep, patient eyes. "I'm just sorry you have to deal with all my ..." He gestured vaguely to himself, unsure how to describe his particular brand of barely functional insanity.

JT snorted softly and patted Malcolm's shoulder. "No need, bro. You keep things interesting, that's for sure, but," he hesitated, then shrugged. "You're part of the team. We got you."

Malcolm searched for the lie in his gaze and found none.

"Thank you," he said softly. Then added, "Jamal Tariq."

JT rolled his eyes and turned away with a loud, exaggerated, "Nooooope!"

* * *

Gil sipped through half his beer before he'd even look at him. The silence in the loft was heavy with Malcolm's failure, his cruelty. His certainty that this was the one line he could not uncross.

"This has to stop, Bright."

Malcolm turned wary eyes on him. "What?"

"All of –" Gil gestured to him, the loft, the situation – "this. Putting your life on the line for a case. They're not worth that, kid."

Malcolm didn't answer.

"Do you even know what you put us through?"

"I'm sorry –"

"Sorry doesn't cut it!" Gil snapped, anger flaring too hot to be held back. "I told your _mother_ you _shot yourself._ Have you any idea what that – what that does to a person? Hearing your kid killed themse –" He took a breath. Passed a hand over his face. Shook his head. "We can't keep playing this game. You need to change. I'm serious, you need to start caring about yourself, Malcolm."

Malcolm stared at his bear, thumbing the label into white mush. It was odd, after so many years, hearing Gil call him _Malcolm._ And now it only reminded him of being limp in the arms of the best person he knew as they sobbed over his own selfishness.

"I know that's hard for you," Gil continued, "I know it is. But you've got to try. For me. For your mother. For Ainsley. You've gotta start thinking about what will happen if you don't come home because I know you don't want to hurt them like that. But you will. One of these days your crazy plans are gonna go wrong – beyond the point where luck can save you. You're gonna get yourself killed, for real, Bright. And I ... I can't go through another day like that, kid. I just can't. You've gotta let me die first, alright?"

Malcolm tried to return the smile but it was weak and unconvincing.

"I know what I did was ... was over the line," he said slowly. "But I honestly couldn't think of another way."

"Well," Gil said, "then that's a problem. There's always another way, Bright. Don't be so quick to go for plan Z. You're not alone anymore, kid. You've got us. The team. So you've gotta start believing in us. Like we believe in you."

He nodded again, not looking at Gil. Relenting, Gil reached for his hand and squeezed it.

"Did I mention how insanely glad I am that you're okay?"

Malcolm blinked up at him, confused for a moment before composing his features with a smile.

"Don't think you did."

"Well. It's about the best news I've ever gotten, hearing you were alive. I –" he sighed, pain flitting across his face and Malcolm glanced away. "I know I don't say it enough, Bright, and I'll say it more if you need to hear it. But I love you. And I need you around. I need you alive. And healthy. Happy is best, but, I'll take what I can get. Just ... next time you think of throwing yourself on the wire, just ... remember I'm the one who's gonna have to bury you. And – and after Jackie, I just ..." He blinked, letting the sentence hang. "Just promise me, kid. You'll try. Yeah?"

Eyes shining, Malcolm nodded. He could count on one hand how many times Gil had said those three words to him. The last time was when he thought Malcolm was leaving him forever.

"I promise, Gil."

Gil nodded, satisfied. "Okay then. Come here."

He leaned forward and pulled Malcolm into a hug, holding him close and Malcolm could feel his breathing stutter and knew he was thinking about the last time he'd done this.

"I'm so sorry, Gil," he whispered. "I'm sorry I put you through that. I – I know it's ... I don't expect you to forgive me, and that's okay, I just –"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Gil pulled back, clapping a hand on Malcolm's shoulder and fixing him with a stern glare. "Weren't you listening? There is _nothing_ you could do that I can't forgive, kid. Nothing."

Hot tears surged in Malcolm's eyes and suddenly exhaustion swept over him. For a moment all he wanted to do was collapse into Gil's grip and feel that rare, warm safety.

"That's not to say I'm not pissed," Gil carried on, voice a little lighter now. "I am very pissed. And I'll be pissed for a long time. But," he added, sincerity weighing his tone now, "of course I forgive you. You risked your life to save mine. And everyone else's. Do you not remember what I told you the night we met? You're a hero, kid." He moved his hand to Malcolm's neck and squeezed and Malcolm's breath shook as the tears skipped free. "Don't you ever forget it."

Malcolm smiled and took the first deep breath since Gil had come over. Maybe since he woke up. He looked down at his hands, hiding his expression. Gil ran his thumb along his jaw and Malcolm dared a brief glance to his face. His brows were pinched, like he was steeling himself for his next words.

"Kid ... Malcolm." He waited for Malcolm to meet his gaze. "When you were ... when I thought you were gone ..."

"Gil, you don't have to –"

"No. No, I do. I want to. There's so much I haven't said to you, kid. How proud of you I am. You've got demons that'd kill most people but you fight them. Every day. You're the strongest person I've ever met – and your mother is one to be reckoned with. You've been my hero since you were ten years old. And since then ..." He swallowed, frown deepening, not quite meeting Malcolm's gaze. "You're the closest thing to a son I'll ever have. And I am the luckiest son of a bitch in New York to be able to say that. Hell, far as I'm concerned, you're my blood." He squeezed his neck again, shaking him slightly. Then stopped trying to keep the emotion down and pulled him into another, longer hug.

"Thank you, Gil," Malcolm whispered. "For everything. For – for not giving up on me."

Gil chuckled, pulling back. "Never, kid. Never."

Malcolm smiled at the man he loved more than any other. The best thing in his life. His personal Superman. The weight that had been crushing him ever since he took that damn poison shifted, slowly loosening. He might never be able to figure out what he'd done to deserve this second chance, this forgiveness from those he loved, but he wasn't about to take it lightly. Gil was right. It was time he started living for his family again.

All of them.

* * *

_**AN: Thank you so much for reading and reviewing! Hope you've all enjoyed! I will be doing more Pson fics but am unsure if I'll keep posting them here. I'm AO3 and will be posting everything there for sure, so hop to my profile to get my link/search me as soulfireinc. Hope you're all safe!**_


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